Do they use Coaling and Water towers for the steam excursion trains?
I was just watching a youtube video on the #611 in Virginia, and I saw this huge coaling tower that spread accross two mainlines. Do they use it still?
I have a modern layout and I was thinking of adding water tower.
I don’t recall seeing a coal tower at Durango or Strasburg, Chama uses a front end loader.
They all use water towers.
The Cumbres & Toltec has a coaling tower, but doesn’t use it, they refuel with a front end loader.
Strasburg uses a front end loader.
There’s quite a few massive concrete coaling towers scattered around Virginia that are just too durable to effectively demolish. They all serve as popular photo props now.
I have seen photos, I do not know where, of steam engines in modern times being filled with water from a tank truck. Some routes that they may travel do not have the water towers any more.
These huge concrete coaling towers that remain – the UP Big Boy traveled (and was much photographed doing so) under at least 3 of them this summer in Wisconsin and Illinois alone – no longer have the attendant buckets and motors and other machinery to bring coal up from the unloading area into the holding area. The steel coal chutes that could be lowered to the tender are gone - just about every moving part is gone with the exception I believe of a few out east where the sanding aspect of the tower might still be in use. Otherwise they are nonfunctional shells. (and of course Big Boy 4014 has been converted to oil anyway so its appearance under a coaling tower is purely a photo prop.)
Here in the midwest at least, excursion steam usually gets its water from fire hoses and hydrants, and its coal via front end loaders. With no ash pits ashes are dumped on the ties and hosed down.
Dave Nelson
Ok thanks everyone. I will plan on getting a steel water tower and concrete coaling tower, on a track near one of my mainlines. Don’t have room for it in the yard faciltiy.
Hello All,
My 4’x8’ HO pike is a freelance based on the Bowie Resource Limited coal operations outside of Paonia, Colorado; set between the late 1970’s to the mid '80’s.
On my pike there is a historic spiral trellis (helix).
An excursion train runs over this structure.
This train is pulled by a USRA 0-6-0 with a Vanderbuilt tender. Occasionally a 0-4-0 Side Tank Porter is used as a helper up the 3% grade to get to the loading shed and the trellis.
Despite being an excursion train at a coal mine these steamers have been converted to burn oil, but they still need water.
The excursion train depot is modeled after the western depot of the George Town Loop railroad.
A restored wooden coaling tower is on the site but is not used.
The diesel servicing facilities is adjacent to the depot.
Fuel oil is piped in to the steam facility and a water stand pipe is used to fill the tenders.
The sanding house sits between the two servicing facilities with overhead piping to fill both the diesel and steam engines.
Steamers never worked the mine so a water tower was never built.
The wooden coaling tower was moved from another fictitious site and rebuilt more as a prop than a working coaling tower.
Unless you are modeling a specific prototypical site model the scene as you wish.
Hope this helps.
When it was still in operation about 10 years ago, our local steam excursion train (Ottawa) was fed water half-way in the excursion route. An old wooden water tower was still used for this purpose.
Simon
A few years ago a steam excursion ran through our area. When they stopped at the station the loco uncoupled and moved ahead to where the local fire department drafted from the river to fill the tank. Make for a unique scene. For coaling, I suspedt that the front end loader, mentioned above, is the most common method these days.
Have fun,
Richard
Oh man that is really cool!
Can’t wait to run some new steam engines on my new layout.
Whenever 611 or 765 makes a ferry move there is usually 2 or 3 gons loaded with coal as well as a bucket/end loader.
As a side note I have seen 4-5 gons loaded with coal in a general freight consist. My guess is these loads are being sent to Ft.Wayne for the 765.
Some years ago when the Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261 came to Milwaukee for some excursions, the local power utility donated a hopper full of coal. Problem is, it was Powder River Basin coal: low in sulfur due to environmental regulations, but also very low in BTUs. It was also crushed to a somewhat smaller size than a steam locomotive would usually use in the tender, which made the automatic stoker somewhat inadequate, but the real problem is that it was just the wrong kind of coal for the purpose. Sounds like the 765 folks know to bring their own and be sure of the quality.
Dave Nelson