A Tipple is what the coal goes up on (conveyer) to get it high enough to drop the coal into a coal car. The trains travel really, really slow, abt 2 mph, taking about 5 hours to load an average coal train (120 cars) , unless a car door comes open and dumps the coal on the ground, which happens. I had a friend who fell off a tipple about 20 years ago, and survived. They told her her fall was equal to falling from a 5 story building. Faith