Maybe I am going into too much fuss about this, but I want to detail the interior of the Walthers Sand House. I found a floor plan from the Railway Gazette1913 (Google books) and a photo image of a small (4ft diameter) coal burning sand drier, but how did the sand get to the vertical tower (which accompanies the sand house model)? Was there a compressor in the building that took dried sand into an air line? Was this a non-stop one-man job at an engine servicing facility? Etc, etc.
I’d appreciate some help on this- any interior images and information would be gratefully appreciated.
You have the basics. ‘Green’ or wet sand is dried in the sand house, and compressed air runs the dried sand up to the elevated sand tower… Depending on the number of engines service, this could be a full time job.
You have it down right. The compressed air was tied in from the shop air / yard air main compressor. Compressed air was plumbed to many places through out the rail yards and service facilities. The air did several things for the wet sand. It elevated it to the sand towers, separated the organic stuff (weeds, leaves, sticks) and removed the dust from the dried sand.
Service facilities that had sand driers would be manned around the clock by laborers and foremen. Some larger driers would also have a bag house to bag dried sand for other smaller facilities in the earlier days before covered sand hoppers.