Ratio Coal Merchants' building - how did that work?

[spikey]

To be precise, Ratio Kit 525 Coal/Builders Merchant Kit, which I'm considering using - except for I don't understand how it's supposed to work.

 

I knew two coal merchant's sidings well in my train-spotting days, both of which had corrugated iron structures over the track, but they were basically just Dutch barns under which the business with the lorry was done.  So with this one, what's the little platform for, and what are the doors for on the side away from the track?  What's the sequence from wagon shunted into place to bagged coal on merchant's lorry?

[TheSignalEngineer]

At the coal merchant where one of my relatives was manageress everything to do with the coal took place in the open. That building looks more suitable for keeping timber needing to be stored under cover but with a good air flow.

[spikey]

... That building looks more suitable for keeping timber needing to be stored under cover but with a good air flow.

 

Timber/builders' merchant is exactly what I thought.  I can see both the little platform and the doors working for that.  But for coal ... ???????

 

Apart from the two sidings I mentioned, the other coal sidings I can recall were all devoid of cover.  I well remember my old granny giving the coalman a hard time about wet coal, and him asking her how she thought he felt about lumping 112lb of wet coal in a wet sack on his back in the rain from his cart to her coal bin.  We kids always used to hang around his cart in the hope that the old horse would oblige by farting, thereby giving us the giggles bigtime ...

Edited October 1, 2017 by spikey

[Nearholmer]

Even in the south there were a few places where coal was dealt with in sheds, Bembridge IoW being one. Unload and bag on the platform, load to lorry through the door. At Bembridge, I think it was a means of stopping coal dust blowing into adjacent houses, but I think security was the reason in some cases places.

 

And, ratio's shed looks poor for timber, which is usually load d into open-fronted "racks". ....... just think how awkward it would be handling last by lengths in that model shed.

 

I've always thought they managed to make a realistic model of something highly untypical. It would be fine as a loco coaling stage, though.

 

Kevin

Edited October 1, 2017 by Nearholmer