Hello I was wondering how much sand a steam ear RR would go though. I have a sanding house made by tyco and I just built a 1937 2 ton dump truck. I thought I would use it to delver the sand but when the truck is next to sand bin the truck looks way to small. They are both ho scale or close to it. I was going to bring it in by rail but poor planning wont let that happen now. So do I need a bigger truck or a smaller bin. My layout is mostly a steam service area. Thanks Frank
I’m not sure how much they would use, but if the dump truck looks to small you could bring in the sand by rail. MOW covered hopper maybe. Just an idea.
If a heavy coal drag were being run over a series of grades approaching 2%, especially if the drag had to be started on even a slight grade, say 0.1%, the engine(s) would go through lots of sand. Figure something in the neighbourhood of 200-300 lbs per engine…I’m guessing, obviously, but it has to be that much or up to twice that much, depending on the size of the sand reservoire and/or how often it could be replenished along the route. Now multiply that by the number of drags in a 24 hour period and you should come up with a gross approximation of the daily requirement for clean and dry sand. Say 4-8 tons of it per day on a busy line? Again, I am trying to ball park it…I don’t have any references.
Someone will come along and help us out because it is a good question.
-Crandell
Back when the Santa Fe was using big steam to tackle heavy grades they added a second, large, sand box to supplement the stock loco’s equally large original sandbox. The two on a 2-10-4 probably could have held a typical 1940s-era dumptruck load of sand.
If the sand quarry wasn’t too distant, prototype railroads would buy green sand and have it delivered by truck - up to several truckload per day at a busy sand facility at the bottom of a long grade. That probably would have been preferable to switching a single car of sand around a busy engine terminal.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
It is difficult to over estimate the amount of company traffic (goods hauled for the railroad’s and its employees’ use), particularly in the not-most-recent decades. There was locomotive fuel, sand, lubricants, car parts, locomotive parts, track parts, paints, solvents, tools, lumber, railroad correspondence, ice, groceries and possibly water for isolated locations, ad nauseam (but in a good way for modelers).
Mark
First sand is use a lot from avoiding wheel slip on starting heavy tonnage trains and while climbing a grade-that includes short grades on curves…Did you know yard engines would use sand as well especially on wet rails?
Also in years past in colder weather locomotives may use more sand to get a train rolling because of stiff grease in the journal boxes.
So,you will need tons of sand for your locomotives that is why they recieved sand in covered hoppers.
But,all is not lost…A dump truck could bring sand for locomotives on a 1 engine short line or a branch line.
Hello when a hopper would bring the sand would it be dropped in a pit and conveyor it out in to the sandbox? Or would the track go over the sandbox and be dropped right in to it ? Thanks Frank
I’m not aware of instances of an elevated track over the sand storage bin. The examples I’ve seen use a conveyer system or shoveling by hand out of a gondola. The method selected would be a function of the relative volume of sand and the period one is modeling.
Mark
The Boston & Maine had a sand facillity at Ayer, Ma which was served by an elevated unloading trestle. Sand went into a covered bins beside the trestle. Sand was delivered in side discharge gondolas. Considering the number of lines radiating out of Ayer it seems an unusually small installation.
Hello I dont think I have the room to do a elevated track but I can do some kind of pit. How big would something like this be? Would it be the size of a ash pit or smaller ? Thanks Frank
All you need is space to spot a hopper within 30’ or so of the bin. A portable conveyer uses almost no space! [:)]
0-6-0, if you’re really serious about this, I highly recommend you acquire the Winter 1999 SP Trainline magazine published by the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society. It contains a 9-page article on the Dunsmuir, CA diesel facility which includes photographs and drawings of sanding and fueling structures. (The drawings show an underground conveyer connecting the unloading pit to the sanding tower.) A quick scan of the article didn’t reveal the dimensions of the sand unloading pit, but the drawings do show that it is between the rails. As for length, I’d assume they weren’t much longer than the unloading gates of the hopper. I’m also making the assumption that the sand cars SP used had longitudinal gates (running along the length of the car) rather than the more common unloading gates that run across the bottom. If you’re planned sand cars have the common gate arrangement, I’d think you would need an unloading pit wider than the width of the rails. In other words, match the cars’ unloading gates to the size of the pit.
Edit – on further examination of the sanding facility plan in the article, it appears the pit wasn’t very deep. Based on the end-view plan, the pit was about three feet deep at the maximum. I presume the pit was contoured to direct the sand over the conveyer belt, of unspecified width but probably to some standard conveyer design, whatever that might have been. However, while the plan shows a scale, I’m unsure the underground portion was accurately scaled.
Mark
Well, in my sanding facility at Deer Creek, the sand is delivered ‘raw’ either by truck or gondola, then shoveled out into the holding bin before it is sent into the sandhouse for ‘refining’. Then it is pumped under pressure to the sand tower itself, where it is pretty constantly filling the sandboxes of the locomotives that have to contend with an immediate 2% grade out of the yard. Of course, in my ‘Imagineering’, I’m going through sand like crazy, because of the size of my locos and the relative length of my grades.
In fact, you’re more likely to find a loco under my sanding tower than you are at the coaling tower, LOL!
Tom [:P]
Hello well I came up with a idea. I have a pit 20’x20’x5’ under the rail I am going to use some gons I have not to sure what they are called but they have doors that open from bottom. They are hinged in the middle of the car and the latch is on the outside. But these will bring in the sand and drop it into the pit I made a conveyor that will bring up the sand to a portable conveyor andthat will load the bin. When I seen Tom’s ash pit in the background I thought it would work ok. What do think ? Frank
I’ve seen at the end of the yard lead quite some sand between the rails. If there’s a long heavy cut the yard engine needs sand.
Wolfgang
Those are known as “drop bottom” gondolas. Railroads described them variably, but the Southern Pacific labeled them “general service” gondolas. They were once very popular (more popular than hopper cars) with western and many central United States railroads. They were quite versatile in the types of loads carried, but at the expense of not being totally self-clearing.
Mark
I’ve never seen this arrangement (very large open pit for dumping raw sand for locomotives) on the prototype, but that does’t mean it wasn’t ever done: I have lived a sheltered life. Shoveling the sand directly to a storage bin or using a conveyer (permanent or mobile) directly under railroad car or dump truck are the only methods I’ve seen.
Mark
Upon further contemplation, I don’t think using drop-bottom gondolas would be a good way to haul fine sand. These gondolas had lots of doors in the floor, thus lots of joints subject to leakage. Better would be a box car or solid-floor gondola for hand shoveling and hopper cars with tightly fitting bottom outlets for unloading directly onto a conveyer.
Mark
The B&O Wilsmere (DE) yard had an open-air servicing facility where locomotives were sanded directly out of company service boxcars.
One type of car was a plain boxcar that arrived with a mound of sand at each end. Sand was shovelled into buckets and hand loaded into the sandboxes on the engines.
The other type of boxcar had a hopper built into each end and piping that could be connected to hoses to blow sand up onto the engines. There may have been roof hatches in the car to fill the hoppers, but after all these years I’m not positive. Air was supplied from the yard air plant.
The sand, which I think came from West Virginia was white and very fine - almost like powder. It had been dried before being loaded into the boxcars.