[thank, you for youre great video]👍

The coal merchant at ground level makes sense to me and yes away from the cattle for sure as other comments suggest. My local station had a coal merchant yard at track/ground level and a ramped bay where coal was sacked and loaded onto trucks or horse-driven carts in the earlier days.

I find Indian Ink is a good dyed liquid base that you can mix to create interesting detail on ballast - I usually include a couple of drops in my glue/dishsoap mix, to stain the ballast. It would probably work quite well on "yard dirt".

Coal would be shoveled into staithes from the wagon - using gravity - from there it can be loaded into sacks, for local sale.

Anther great video and loving the progress on your new layout. Re. the coal merchant. that last location at ground level would work or if you don’t want the wagon coal being moved through the goods shed I would put the merchant on the other side of that. The ground level location is great with the back of the coal staithe lining up with the base of the gate on your wagons and as close to the track as you can get it for your widest wagon, so they can literally open the gate and the coal drops out straight into the staithe and the remainder would then get shovelled in. The alternative is where you use the bottom shutes in the wagon to empty into a pit beneath the track and but they you need a means of conveyor to get it out and up to the correct level by your staithe.

In my opinion, cattle are incompatible with a coal deposit or any type of fuel. At the end of the other end, it seems to me a good place, although I think that adding a new point and a small piece of track would be much better. Good job!! 👍

Looking good! But be careful with play sand as some mixes may contain iron sand which could be attracted to your loco motor and also not good in aquariums . - test with a magnet.