I was using the new Branchline HO passenger car as a guide for detailing other cars and noticed there is no water tank on the underframe. Is this an omission or was water carried internally for the lavatories? Any one know?
Bob
Many branchline cars water tanks were located inside the cars near the roof line so gravity fed the water to the hoppers and sinks. Most of the branchline cars only offered cold water. For those with hot water it was usually from a oil fired hot water heater.
The Branchline car should have a water tank on the underside of the car. Prescion Scale makes a nice brass water tank, or you can use New England Rails model. Your best bet is to use photos for the location of the tank
Ch
BBZZZZZT! Wrong! These cars are a prototype of the NYC day coach, and as such, were built with gravity feed rooftop water tanks. An excerpt from the Passenger Car Yahoogroup, the largest collection of passenger car historians online:
One detail in the underbody appears to be missing in action…the
water tank.
Not missing as there was none. As built these cars had a gravity-
fed, not pressurized, water system supplied from tanks in the roof.
These tanks could be filled from either an access in the roof (look
closely at a good roof photo of these cars and one can see it) or
from a funnel-shaped access at underbody level. The vast majority of
these cars kept this water system for their entire service life. Some
got pressurized systems but these were mostly rebuilt cars with
reduced seating. I don’t know if such cars had underbody water tanks
applied as part of this.
John in NY
That’s the biggest problem with the internet…misinformation is easy to spread, but not so easy to dispel. Information in general is out there online, you just have to check out multiple sources and make informed decisions as to whether or not a poster knows what he’s talking about.