coaling towers

[NW Mailing List]

> I also wonder why they leave them standing? Just too expensive to take down?


Expensive and difficult.  They do remove most of the metal parts, but the concrete portion, especially on the larger towers, some as much as 2000 tons, is like blowing up a small mountain.  They were extremely well built; I heard of one example, on Conrail I believe, where they were going to knock one down, but the demolition crew underestimated the strength of the tower and just collapsed on the main line.  Even a correct demolition would produce tons of concrete debris that would need to be removed.

Marty Flick