I am in the process of building a Roundhouse 3 in 1 kit of a steam era fire fighting train (kit # 1507). My question is how did they power the pumps? Would they have used steam from the engine or a separate gas engine? Also, I would like suggestions on where to find HO scale models of the type of power sources used, or pictures of the equipment so I can fudge an approximate model. By the way, for those not familiar with the Roundhouse series of 3 in 1 kits, they are a lot of fun to build - sort of 50% scratch building with Roundhouse supplying the main bits. They can provide you with some really interesting and unusual rolling stock although they are not up to the standards that the ‘rivet counters’ would expect (personally I am not too concerned with really fine details - I just run the trains faster so you can’t see them anyhow! LOL). I am not sure if they are still producing the kits but if not you might want to keep an eye out for them at the train shows and sales.
Regards to all and thanks in advance for your advice.
You are right about those roundhouse kits, I have had great luck with them , sure, not precise enough for the rivetheads, but more than sufficient for me, last year I found a complete fire train set of brass on ebay, it was magnificent, but it was also a million dollars, I managed to get some prints for details, now I’ve lost them, they were great for details and modification, still searching for them, occaisionally one of these sets come up on ebay and brass sellers, great for information.
In the days of steam, there were steam powered water pumps. Quite a few smaller branch line locomotives were equipped with them. They could be installed anywhere from on the tender (close water supply), on the loco pilot, or anywhere in between.
As a matter of fact, Cal-Scale made a detail casting of them along with a hose reel. Bowser has picked up the Cal-Scale line, so you should be able to find them.
Not sure what kind device powers the pumps on this U.P. water car “caught” in Dunsmuir (gee, you’d think after more than 10 years the U.P. would reletter the S.P. car), but I’d guess gasoline engines. Note the sprayers along the car side near the railhead. These are used to wet down the ties and immediate right-of-way. I believe the U.S. Forest Service requires this during the fire season in its forests (we have dry summers on the West Coast). The railroad includes these cars in freight revenue train runs. Joe Fugate works this into his layout operations. … Good lesson on rust here.
Thanks everyone for the information. I checked with Bowser and wouldn’t you know it - one of the few items that they no longer have in stock is a steam powered pump complete with hose reel (Cal Scale # 190-287). I am debating whether to use a steam era water pump (which I have) or seeing if I can fabricate something that resembles a small gas/diesel engine. Since I am modelling the transistion era I am leaning towards the later. Can anyone suggest a source or post pictures of an appropriate example?
Going back to the earliest days of Sierra railroading, the J. W. Bowker had a humongous (for the size of the locomotive) fire pump mounted between the domes, lengthwise of the boiler.
Another ‘quick and dirty’ technique for propelling water from the tender to the fire was to disconnect one injector line from the check valve and connect a hose. Hit the injector and direct the stream with a nozzle. Of course, this was rather limited by the tender capacity…
Saw a firefighting train on a logging road that had several tank cars (obviously home-built, no two alike) and a diesel pump on a flat car. All of the cars were mounted on what had been wooden-frame disconnect trucks! By that time the locomotive fleet was all-diesel, none big enough to carry a pump.
Don’t know about steam era but I’ve seen modern tank cars that are used for fire fighting purposes. In nearly all cases they had a gasoline or diesel powered pump. Many of these were small pumps for transferring water to vehicles such as tanker and pumper trucks (speaking from personal experience) while others had high power pumps of 1200 to 2000 gallons a minute for pressurizing attack lines. Some of the cars used a small pump for loading only and were unloaded by gravity.
Thanks to all including trfindley who sent a picture of a nicely modelled water car with an early gas engine and what looks to me to be a pump similar to a water pump used on a steam engine but obviously driven by gas power instead of steam. I will use it to model something akin.
Its a little trivial and I don’t know anything about the steam era. But if a gas or diesel engine is used, it would be a diesel. The reasoning is this, the train engine (at least a locomotive) has about 4000 gallons of diesel available to power the pump. Gasoline pumps need a supply of gas to be stored. Gasoline will go stale and even make condensation in the tank. Locomotive engines are in tugboats which I work on. I have access to 80k gallons of diesel to power my pumps at any time, but no gas. I suspect a freight train 100 miles from anywhere needs to have a supply of fuel for its pumps. By the way, Fireboats in large cities have their pumps hooked up to the engines by a PTO. Los Angeles’s new vessel can move 38,000 gallons per minute.
Tug, that’s pure speculation. I doubt the pumps were diesel powered. Diesel takes a strong (heavy) engine to control the pressures. Gasoline engines were much cheaper and lighter, and I don’t see siphoning a diesel locomotive’s fuel tank to fuel those engines.
German Railways have a number of rescue trains stationed along the high speed main lines, which also include fire fighting cars. These cars are equipped with various fire fighting gear and have two different pumps (foam and water) on board, powered by a Diesel engine.
This** link** shows some pictures of these trains and also have a brief description in English.
Whereas a diesel engine is heavier built, they are the size of lawn mower engines. Even pull start with a decompression valve. Completely self contained as long as you can supply fuel. Its how most fire pumps are run (on tugs). This is not a new design. I guarantee you there is a way to get the fuel out of the locomotives fuel tank, if no other way than the drain line by gravity in to a 5 gallon bucket. Also where the fuel line filters are, there is a drain or a flat out fitting to get fuel for testing. That is how I fill my pump’s tanks, they only hold about 2 gallons. A little 5 hp engine can move water thru 1 1/2" lines at 90 gallons a minute and run for a couple of hours. This is sufficient for most wildland type fires. As a volunteer firefighter, we use 95GPM for standard structure fires with 1 3/4 inch lines.
But this is all mute, since it doesn’t pertain to steam era. Like I said, I don’t have a clue how they did it. My guess would be to somehow channel the steam through hoses, but that is 100% guess.
Well, why not? The Germans even used diesel engines to power airplanes, [:-,] and Herr Diesel, born in France to German immigrants, invented the engine.