Speaking of operating the coal tipple,
back in the day, coal was loaded from the mines directly into the gons, which emptied into the tipple.
Today the coal wound need to be loaded into the gons in the same way that coal is loaded into the tenders, with a front end loader. The gon would then need to be spotted at the tipple and unloaded, and the tipple operated.
I would love to see it for demonstration purposes, but as far as the day to day operations go, it is much easier an more efficient to just load the tenders with the front end loader as they are doing.
There is great historical value in being able to do things the way they used to be done, but only for special occasions.