I am modeling the N&W in the fall of 1957 in West Virginia. I am looking for a few kits to build. Any suggestions?
Campbell is my first choise in water towers and coaling stations.
If you need something quick and dirty, then the Walthers Water Tank works.
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3531
I painted mine in Rio Grande colors just to have something sitting near the turntable in Durango. It’ll be replaced by a Durango Press tank once it’s built.
Oddly enough, Walthers has the built-up version of this tank regularly priced the same as the kit. Right now, though, it’s on sale for less than the kit. Go figure.
If you’re going for a N&W look, then there must be someone who does 'em. I thought maybe BTS, but they do C&O structures, but no N&W.
BTW, try searching with “water tank” if you’re filling locos. When I tried “water tower” on Walthers, it gave me city water supply towers.
This is the Walthers one as it came out on my layout, before all the surrounding scenery was built:
But, I’m still not sure what the OP is looking for. Do you want a model of a wood water tower, or a wood model of a water tower? The Walthers kit is a plastic model, not wood.
If you paint and weather it, the old Atlas wood water tank kit can come out very nicely.
This is a junker I picked up at a train show for really cheap. “POLA HO” is molded into the inside. It was lacking a spout when I got it. A cast metal spout, part number 3901, by Alexander Scale Models turned up at another train show. It included the water depth gauge. The spout rigging, pulleys and counterweights are all scratch built. The wood tank is painted in flat olive drab from a rattle can. The roof is painted in dark gray auto primer. The white insulator on the lightening arrester is a glass bead from the craft dept at Walmart. The oil drums are from the junk box, and the stand is scratch built from bits of stripwood.
Similar results could be obtained from any of the other water tank kits on the market.
For your road and era, check out the Tichy steel water tank. It comes with two different styles of roof and bottom.
I used the Atlas tanks, but replaced the spouts with ones from Grandt Line:
Wayne
Craig,
The Walthers water tower is a nice one. That’s the one I have on my layout and one of the first Walthers kits I built. American Model Builders (AMB) also makes a very nice laser-cut version that is actually made out of wood:
Tom
I don’t know if it will be a good fit, but here is the CPR water tank from Kanamodel.
Crandell,
That’s a nice-looking water tower. Are those metal stays around the tank OD molded on or added on? They look like a separate part.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. The cables are a green darning thread and the turnbuckles are a plastic glue-on product that were on a sprue, probably from a third party provider such as Details West or Grandt Line…someone other than Kanamodel, I’m pretty sure. I would guess the same is true for the water spout.
Crandell