In most small towns in the late 40s and early 50’s Steam was still running… so at a small town station you’d have a water tower for the loco…but what other structures would you have for maintenance… I’m sure you wouldn’t have large coal tower in every town? I’ve googled it a bit to no avail?
Hands? Anyone?
Actually, most small towns WOULDN’T have a water tower, or any other kind of maintenance facility unless the town was a branchline terminal or had a switcher based there. The majority of small towns would have had a mainline track, a combination passenger/freight station (with a Railway Express sign and a Western Union sign) a house/team track, possibly a passing siding, and sidings to whatever industries needed rail service. Only places where mainline trains would have HAD to take water would have had water towers - and on some railroads those towers would have filled track pans so the trains wouldn’t have to stop.
If the town had a locomotive assigned, then it would have had water facilities, a minimum coaling station (probably relying largely on a strong back and a shovel) and someplace to dump ashes (possibly a steel plate between the ties, which would be raked/shoveled off after use.)
One thing to consider - the Norfolk and Western closed 31 water stations after adding canteens to their articulateds. Water tower maintenance was just another expense that management was happy to eliminate wherever possible.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with water columns)
Steam engines had to stop every so many miles for water. Coal usually wasn’t an issue, it was water that would run out first. It would just depend on how far they could usually get while going from city A to city B at the other end of the line. If your small town happened to be just the right distance from city A or city B it would have a water tower to provide water to the engines. If not, you’d probably just have a depot.
One thing that was common (but not that often modelled) was a “house track” that went behind the station, for cars to be spotted at the depot or near the depot (kinda like a team track).
You might want to pick up one of the MR/Kalmbach “Modelling the Fifties” books (but not both, they’re basically two versions of the same book).
A small town, or mid-size town, would not necessarily mean maintenance facilities were located at that town’s station.
Johnstown, PA, was on the Class I - Pennsy’s 4-track mainline, and a gander at these pictures, noting the absence of such facilities, shows that this passenger station was a decent-sized union station…
http://www.trainweb.org/usarail/johnstown.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Johnstown_PA_Station_with_Train.jpg.jpg
Local maintenance facilities were availble primarily for the miles of Bethlehem Steel Plant(s) industrial shortlines. Big Steel did justify a quick interchange with the Pennsy along its primary 4-track Pennsylvania mainline.
The Baltimore & Ohio also had an interchange/spur into Johnstown with a freight station, but no such maintenance facilities. The closest Pennsy maintenance facilities were located 45-60 minutes away in Altoona, at their Juniata Shops.
A suggestion for layout purposes might be “to select a major town” and build maintenance facilities there, such as was the case for the Pennsy’s massive Altoona complex.
S:
This is the kind of question John Nehrich could probably answer definitively. I’d suggest buying a month’s subscription to the RPI site and reading the heck out of it.
I can’t answer definitively, but everything I can dig up tends to tell me similar answers to questions like this: “more than you might think”. This is especially true if you’re used to looking at the bare-bones physical plant the railroads have today.
You’re not going to have a whole lot of towns on any model railroad, so if you put a water tank, a combination station, or station and freight shed, a section house, and an outhouse at every one, you wouldn’t be far wrong for the steam era, where railroad structures are concerned. Of course, these don’t all qualify as maintenance. The outhouse might. [:)]
This stuff tended to disappear in the period mentioned. Older power was retired, and some got bigger tenders, and larger engines were progressively downgraded to easier jobs, where they didn’t need to work that hard. Working hard, a steam loco can use many thousands of gallons of water per hour, but at lower throttle and cutoff settings, this decreases. This is the kind of question Mark Newton could answer better.
It’s kind of suprising, as well, how many towns that we now think of as small had switchers stationed, or a little armstrong turntable. There were a lot of roundhouses too. There was a lot of everything. That’s one reason the steam era is so fascinating.
More common, leastwise for the Southern Pacific, was to have the house track between the main track and the small-town station if it was a combination passenger/freight depot. It also often served as a team track in addition to its freight-house function. They were double-ended and superficially looked like a short passing siding. That way, trains from either direction could easily serve the track. In the late steam era, passenger service wasn’t provided to many/most small towns, particularly if they were on branchlines.
Mark
Don’t make all your towns the same. You’re not modeling little villages in Costa Rica which all have at least three facilities: a church, a school, and a soccer field.
Mark
Here is a picture of my small home town in NJ taken some time before WWII. It is located 16 miles north of the Hudson River ferry to New York City on the double track main line of the West Shore Division of the NYC. South of the station on a siding is a water tank and a freight station. Peter Smith, Memphis 
What is interesting is that a small town might have a surprisingly large depot back in steam days, if for example that small town was a junction with another steam road or interurban line.
Sometimes the freight (LCL) part of a station might be a separate building, or it might be integral with the depot. It was not unusual for the “first” depot of a town to become the freight depot when a newer and nicer passenger depot was constructed.
As the above posters have indicated, a water tower would not be in every town - but rather placed at the intervals that that road’s tenders would need. It might be in a small town, so don’t rule that out. It might not be near the depot per se even if it was in a small town. Now my own home town of South Milwaukee had a small water tank in steam days, but it was located on the westbound track perhaps so that engines facing the grade into Milwaukee could be sure of a water supply if they stalled. it might also have served the local switcher. East bound trains were only 10 miles from their likely origin in Milwaukee so there was no need for water. The nearest water was likely in Racine, WI.
A small town might have had a dedicated shed for milk train service if it was in a farm area. Or there might have been stockpens nearby either if the area supplied livestock or if the station was at an interval where the law dictated that livestock be exercised and fed outside the cars.
Back in steam days railroads often had track gangs that worked pretty constantly on a relatively small stretch of track. Thus a few section houses or buildings might be in order, with access for a speeder, and perhaps a tool supply shed or two. There were two such sheds in the general vicinity of the South Milwaukee depot. Eventually they tore the sheds down and just had all that stuff in wha
Guys, Thank you very much… It’s always a smart idea to get info from people with experience. You guys are great… again thank you. I’m am still in the track plan stage. I want to do this right. I’m sure I’ll have other question…and I’ll be reading and doing a lot of research before the layout comes together.
One of the great things about Model Railroading is the people I’ve met that love the hobbie. Our hobby shop closed here many years ago…about the time my kids were learing to walk. I had to let the trains go…they are grown now and I have room, time, but still no hobby shop or place to network…
Thank you for letting me tap your experience. Means a lot.
One thing to consider re depot size is that a very small remote town might have a surprisingly large two-story depot because it was designed to have the station master and his family live in the upper level. Good news for the station master was he lived and worked in the same place so it was convenient and affordable. Bad news, there was no relief shift - you were “on call” 24-7.
That might have been dying out by the time you’re modelling but it was quite common in the midwest prarie country before WW2. Northern Pacific, Great Northern, Soo Line etc. in North Dakota and Minnesota did that a lot.
Here’s a pic of a model of an NP depot that features living quarters on the upper level:
Based on a 1932 MP/IGN profile map, they had stations about every 5-15 miles and water towers every 40-50 miles. Most stations of any size had a double ended track or a siding. In Texas, the most common structures at stations, besides the depot, were cotton docks, loading platforms, stock pens and water towers, pretty much in that order.
The railroad yard in a typical prairie town in Canada. Note the spur line to access the grain elevators and stock-pens and bulk oil facilities.
http://www.cpsig.ca/data/Townships/archerwill_sk.pdf
http://www.cpsig.ca/data/Townships/rose_valley_sk.pdf
Neither of these towns have any water or coal facilities.
A typical station, note that the living quarters are on both levels.
http://www.cpsig.ca/data/Structures/H-15-43.pdf
A smaller station
http://www.cpsig.ca/data/Structures/H-15-66.pdf
If the station did not have living quarters there would be section house structure located near the station of the stationmaster and his family.
Speaking of New York, small towns such as Geneva (population <4,000) in 2000 had a very ornate depot built. See http://www.trainweb.org/rshs/GRS%20-Geneva,%20NY.htm. Since I am modeling a small town in NY, I been considering what type of station to model.
Also, I had originally wanted to add some maintenance facilities, but decided that a tower might make the scene more interesting, especially with a junction. Just a thought.