Famous Reading Anthracite Coal - 28.5 cu in

[webenda]

This topic is about Brennan's Model Railroading Coal Product.

Upon Robert's recommendation...

Try here. https://brennansmodelrr.com/products/re ... acite-coal

I decided to try a bag of Brennan's Famous Reading Anthracite Coal - 28.5 cu in.

I went online and place an order for three bags of egg coal on Thu., Dec 14, 2017.

Shipping charges were not revealed at the time of the order but there was a note that shipping charges would be billed separately.
There was a note that I could review the order on my account page.

This is what I see on my account page:

The account page does not seem very useful.
How much was the shipping charge?
A few days later the shipping charges showed up on my credit card account.


The coal arrived on Mon Dec 18, 2017.


How much coal did I receive? Brennan's Model Railroading site says it is 28.5 cu in.
Let's measure it.
I dumped two bags into a four cup measuring cup.

Nice, exactly 3 1/3 cups. 3.333 cup [US] = 48.125 cubic inch.
But how do we know the measuring cup is accurate?
Look at the bottom of the cup. What do you see?

FIRE KING
ANCHOR HOCKING
MADE IN USA
GRADUATED FOR COOKING USE ONLY
7

"Cooking Use Only" is a statement that means this measuring cup is notoriously inaccurate and is not to be used for accurate measuring of coal.
No problem, we can use an inaccurate measuring cup by calibrating it to learn just how much 1 1/3 cup really is. All we need is a standard to compare the measuring cup to. What do we have around the house that has an accurate volume? Water*!!! Water has a weight of 16.387064 grams per cubic inch. Doesn't matter if it is distilled or tap water, its temperature or local gravity, it has the same weight/volume ratio when it comes to being used for a model railroad "standard" if you consider the accuracy required. So, let's measure the volume of water at the 3 1/3 level in this measuring cup.

In case anyone asks, yes, my postal scale is accurate and traceable to the international standard kilogram.
Reference:=> https://www.bipm.org/en/bipm/mass/ipk/

Finally, an answer to the question, "How much coal is in one of Brennan's 28.5 cu in bags?"

757 grams of water divided by 16.387064 grams per cubic inch equals 46.2 cubic inches. One bag therefore contains 46.2 / 2 = 23.1 cu in.

Dennis, how did you come up with 28.5 cu in for your bags of coal?

* Water is an intrinsic standard for mass/volume and temperature (freezes at 273.15 Kelvin.)
The term Intrinsic refers to something that is inherent in the nature of a thing. With regard to metrologic references, it usually concerns a characteristic property of a natural material or process. International standard scales, such as those for time, dimension, temperature, voltage, and resistance, are increasingly based on intrinsic natural properties rather than on physical artifacts.

[webenda]

Brennan's Famous Reading Anthracite Coal - 28.5 cu in evaluation continued...

How big is #1 egg coal from Brennan's Model Railroading?

Egg size is defined as, "goes through 5-inch holes, retained by 2-inch round holes."
Here are a few Brennan's egg coal pieces on my Helix Cutting Mat.

I used photogrammetry to measure the length and width and found the minimum dimension of each piece to be 2 or more scale inches across but my cutting mat is not a standard for length plus the close-up lens I used (handheld magnifier) introduced some severe pin cushion distortion. So, I pulled out the measuring microscope.


In the second image, the measure is 1.962 1:48 scale inches. Since the coal egg is wider just above the measurement line, this piece passes the "retained by 2-inch round holes" requirement.

In the first photo, it may look like I am measuring a shadow along with the surface in focus but the "shadow" looking part is really part of the chip that is out of focus.

In the second photo, I only measured the part in focus. When I moved the focus up and down I did not find anything but shadow.

Very nice Dennis.

[Roy]

Wayne, I didn't see the shipping charge.

[webenda]

Wayne, I didn't see the shipping charge.

How much was the shipping charge?
A few days later the shipping charges showed up on my credit card account.

Shipping charge was $8.95 Roy.

This is the postage charged by USPS:

[Roy]

Kind of like getting three bags of coal for the price of four.

[webenda]

Kind of like getting three bags of coal for the price of four.

I don't look at it that way Roy. I gladly paid $8.95 to avoid a trip to Independence, Missouri to pick up the packages myself... it would have been a long walk. Three bags of 1:48 coal only weigh 3 lb, but I bet they would feel like 300 pounds if I had to carry them 1,203 miles back from Independence.

Fly? American Airlines: $270 round trip from Tucson. Kayak Airlines: $49 round trip from Phoenix. $8.95 is cheaper than flying and USPS is faster than Kayak.

7 days?

Kayak.jpg (24.3 KiB) Viewed 9321 times

[webenda]

This topic is about Brennan's Model Railroading Coal Product.

Dennis, how did you come up with 28.5 cu in for your bags of coal?

2:12 PM (2 hours ago)

Hi Wayne,

That’s a great question. I have not a clue. It should be 27 Cubic In. I made a box out of foamcore with interior dimensions of 3 x 3 x 3 = 27 CI. That seemed to me to be a reasonable amount of product for the price. I can only surmise that at the time I was thinking 26.5 Cubic Inches to allow for any discrepancy in filling the box. How I ever transformed that to 28.5 is beyond me. It has been that way forever and I never thought about it. You are the first and only one to ask the question—too funny.

Dennis

PS: Feel free to post my response to you. I’m in the middle of a host of things right now. Tell all-I said hi!

Dennis says, "Hi!", to everyone on MTJ.

Thank you, Dennis, perfectly understandable.

PS: I must be your only customer with Measurement OCD.

[robert.]

Wayne all i said was your load looked a little high. No need to go Kalvin scale on us. I do believe tamp matters when measuring water. 1 gram of water @1c. is a cubic centimeter in size. My grandmother would have smacked you up side your ear hole. using a liquid measure to measure a solid. I would go round and round with her that they were the same. until my grandfather would walk in and say " let it go Robby let it go" Later he would tell me " don't argue with a bar keep at his counter and don't argue with The lady of the house in her kitchen"

[webenda]

Wayne all i said was your load looked a little high. No need to go Kalvin scale on us. I do believe tamp matters when measuring water. 1 gram of water @1c. is a cubic centimeter in size. My grandmother would have smacked you up side your ear hole. using a liquid measure to measure a solid. I would go round and round with her that they were the same. until my grandfather would walk in and say " let it go Robby let it go" Later he would tell me " don't argue with a bar keep at his counter and don't argue with The lady of the house in her kitchen"

In the U.S., the quantity measured by dry and liquid measured less than a pint are the same. After that, there is a difference. A U.S. pint used for liquid measures is 473 milliliters, where as a dry measure pint is 551 milliliters, which means it is 16.5% larger. A U.S. dry measure quart is 16.4% bigger than its liquid counterpart, at 1101 milliliters vs. 946. As for a measuring cup, a cup is a cup. Or is it?



Letting random people use dry measure cup for both dry and liquid and liquid measure cup for both liquid and dry measure resulted in up to 10% variation using the correct measuring cup and up to 26% variation using the wrong measuring cup. I chose the liquid measuring cup for my dry measure because I wanted to measure a whole bag. The liquid measuring cup does not have to be full to make the measurement. Now that I think about it... there is a way to use a dry measuring cup to measure the amount of coal in a bag but I do not want to do it again.
Reference: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_to ... uring-cups

The density of water at 4 °C (39.2 °F) is 0.999972 gm/cu cm. If I had used this density for water the coal would have a volume of 23.1 cu in
The density of water at 20 °C (68.0 °F) is 0.998203 gm/cu cm. If I had used this density for water the coal would have a volume of 23.1 cu in
The density of water at 38 °C (100.4 °F) is 0.99300 gm/cu cm. If I had used this density for water the coal would have a volume of 23.3 cu in

So, yes, temperature matters if we need to measure to an accuracy of ±0.1 cu in. Dennis's stated volume of 28.5 cu in implies an accuracy of ±0.5 cu in. Ideally, our measurement should be 10 times better or ±0.05 cu in. That is not possible with a measuring cup. See the above reference. Thus my statement that temperature doesn't matter is correct because other measurement errors swamp out any error from not considering the density of the water at room temperature instead of 4 °C.

And as for grandma... tell her she is correct and she can leave the train room now.

[chuck]

Coal doesn't dissolve in water? Anthracite is pretty dense, I don't think it floats. You could have partially filled the measuring cup with a known quantity of water, dumped in one bag of coal and then measured the volume displacement directly?

[robert.]

Errors? 2 wrongs don't make a right but 3 lefts do. You probably got even more coal then you measured. Bag 2 and 3 compressed bag 1 in your measuring cup. If this thread as on another website it would be locked down. Your measuring cup is not a forum sponsor.

[Seaboard Air Line Fan]

Thought I walked into a scene from the old movie "Andromeda Strain":

andromeda strain.jpg (26.47 KiB) Viewed 9291 times

Just how old is Michael Crichton anyway???

I tried to use real coal on my Williams USRA 2-8-2 but it looked too big so I went to black foam rubber (which looks too uniform):

DSCN0405_234.JPG (290.87 KiB) Viewed 9291 times

Haven't tried making a load using a mold and some resin, but may eventually give it a try.

[v8vega]

You guys have too much time on your hands. Idle hands are the devil's workshop.

[webenda]

Coal doesn't dissolve in water? Anthracite is pretty dense, I don't think it floats. You could have partially filled the measuring cup with a known quantity of water, dumped in one bag of coal and then measured the volume displacement directly?

Not in this case. Dennis Brennan sells the coal as 28.5 cu in including the air space between the coal eggs. Your suggestion would not include the air spaces.

Dennis has already revealed his measurement method. He uses a 27 cu in measuring cup, overfills the cup then scrapes the overburden off. That is the correct and most accurate way to use a dry measure cup.

Dennis asked me, "How do we account for the difference between your measurement and mine?" Since I do not know the answer I accept finding the answer as a fun challenge.

What we know so far:

DENNIS
Dennis uses a 27 cu in dry measure (28.5 cu in is a typo.)

DIFFERENCE
27 - 23.1 = 3.9 = 14.44%

WAYNE
A liquid measuring cup does not measure dry measures as accurately as a dry measure cup.
Measuring flour in a liquid measuring cup, where it’s impossible to level off any excess, had a variance all the way up to 26 percent in one test.
Reference: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_to ... uring-cups

[Rufus T. Firefly]

including the air space

Perhaps this variable is one to consider? How irregular particles pack might change the amount of air space?