Just now thought of this, but top down works a lot better for lighting a coal fire, especially in one of the narrow, deep coal baskets.
Coal burns from the bottom up (fundamentally differently than wood) but you need to start with a wood fire if you're going to get anthracite coal lit.
You put a couple of larger chunks on the bottom and build your fire on top of that and that starts you off with a good set of coals that has staying power when you start loading in the coal.