Coaling stage platforms - Model Railroader Magazine

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a transition era layout involving a rural area small industry, town, and yard somewhere in northwest USA. I'm looking at options for how trains might've been coaled.

From what I've read, coaling towers were only used in busy areas, with big locos frequently needing large amounts of coal quickly. In less busy areas what I've read vaguely says coaling was often done "by hand". What does that even mean? Is it actually just some guys with shovels? That sounds like it would take forever to fully load up a tender.

The happy medium that I've seen is the coaling stage: a platform or small building raised up above track level. A coal car follows a siding up into the building, where side doors open and coal can spill or get shoveled out onto a platform, then into a tender, possibly via a chute in a fancy design. It seems like a good solution; cheap and easy to build and operate compared to a coaling tower because it's really just a ramp and platform and track, but you could load a lot more coal a lot quicker than some poor guy shovelling from near ground height.

Example picture here and here, though if you just google coaling stage, there are hundreds of pictures of both prototypes and models.

However, nearly every single example seems to be British. As far as I can tell it is almost unheard of in the USA. I could only find one lonely example of what appears to be a coaling stage on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, here. And the coal wagon cars used in them also seem exclusively British. They're basically short gondolas with side doors. But it seems impossible to find an American example of either the coaling stage itself or the wagons used with it.

What's going on? Were they not used in the USA despite being apparently ubiquitous in the UK? Or has the evidence of them been eclipsed by the coaling tower because that's what was used for the big impressive routes and trains?