Does anyone know exactly were the track pans were located at Swan Creek? I grew up near there in Havre de Grace but never heard of track pans until r.ecently. I have been trying to find out exactly where a connection was built about 1909 between the B&O and the PRR after the B&O bridge over the Susquehanna River collapsed due to a derailment during it´s rebuild.
The connection was called either “Osborne” or “Oakington” depending on who you asked back then. There are some reports that say that this was not the most convienient place for a connection. There was a better area but the B&O track pans were in the way. If I knew “exactly” where the track pans were, I could make a pretty good placement of the temporary crossover from 1909 - 1910. The other connection back on/off the B&O is at Perryville “Aiken”. It still exists and was built for the purpose mentioned above.
I have also heard mention that an earlier connection might have existed between the B&O and PRR in this general vicinity.
Here is a very good ariticle and picture of a B&O Steam engine using the track pans at Swan Creek. http://www.borhs.org/shopping/images/60334.pdf
The track chart shows one piece of level track in the area, a quarter-mile long. Its east end is maybe 300-400 ft west of the Swan Creek bridge. Note the topo map shows a water tank next to the B&O there.
I know I saw a section of track pan in one of the railroad museums. I think it was in the RR Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg, or maybe in the Altoona Railroaders Museum in Altoona. As I recall, there was a display describing the process and identifying track pan locations on the PRR.
Interestingly, the NYC was frustrated by the tendency of tenders to explode (or nearly explode) due to the high pressures involved in high-speed scooping. They did a lot of experimenting, and managed to build tenders with relief vents that kept the pressures under control sufficiently to allow scooping at speeds around 80 mph! This was in the 1940’s.
On the Philadelphia Subdivision, the intermediate signal, two miles west of Havre de Grace is named “Osborne”. It sits at the top of a knoll at milepost BAK61, though current signal location names are not always at the historical location of a station. I can’t see any evidence of a roadbed leading off towards the Pennsy, but it has been over a hundred years!
In my reading, IIRC, at least on the NYC, there were lamps (blue or green?) on posts at trackside at the point where the scoop should be lowered and where it should be raised. This was very important, because if a scoop was not raised in time, it could hit a road crossing or other obstruction. An article in the NYCSHS Headlight magazine some years ago was about a mighty 4-8-4 Niagara during WWII that rolled over as a result of that error. The cab was engulfed with soil and ballast. And a nurse on-board the train saved the engineer’s life with her quick thinking by reaching into his mouth and throat and removing the debris. IIRC, this incident happened at Lydick, Indiana. We also had another track pan in Indiana on the NYC near Corunna that I know of. One tale that is often told about track pans in the old days is that of finding hobos frozen to death (riding the rods under the cars) encrusted with ice and frozen to the cars after being sprayed by the track pans in very cold weather. In addition to the track pans, the pans had to be heated in cold weather, have a water supply with water tank nearby and be attended–another example of steam locomotive infrastructure that doomed the iron horse. Years ago I met a guy that was the attendant at Corunna, Indiana.(Life was so much simpler, less costly and not so labor intensive with diesels, of course.) Victor A. Baird www.erstwhilepublications.com
It wasn’t fear of hitting a road crossing, it was hitting the end of the pan itself. The scoop had to be lowered several inches below track level to get into the water. And that pan had sides and ENDS. Some scoops were “removed” due to raising it too late and some were lost due to dropping it too soon. There had to be markers at both ends so the crew would know when it was safe to drop the scoop and when it HAD TO be raised. They wanted it in the water as long as possible to
Apparently many railroads made a point of having ramps facing both ways at each end of a track pan, precisely so that any errant dragging scoop would be (relatively) gently lifted out of harm’s way without causing damage. This is covered in this reference which discusses the accident we were discussing.
“Track pans were ramped with thicker steel on both sides
of each end in order to present a gradual rise that would
protect the pan from violent collision with a scoop that
had either been lowered prematurely or raised too late.
This incline guided the scoop into its “up” position, from
which it could descend again if not properly secured. In
the early days before the use of air- operated controls,
firemen were known to simply let the pan ramp push the
extended scoop back up rather than risk a broken bone
caused by the control rod “bucking” back on them. This
practice, of course, wasted water and was discouraged.”
It’s possible that some railroads didn’t think to put ramps at the ends of their pans – but that doesn’t mean none did.
There were also track pans on the Royal Blue B&O route between Jersey City and Washington. At least one may have been on the Reading or CNJ for use primarily by B&O locomotives that ran through with B&O engine crews JC-DC. The Reading locomotive may also have used them on their runs between JC and Philadlephia, but I doubt the CNJ engines did since their runs were relatively short, Except for the Queen of th eValley route to Harrisburg.
Did not the IC also use track pans on their main line?
No ICRR used old tenders (“water bottles”). I can’t remember the issue, but there was a fantastic shot of an IC 2600 hauling a meat train and it you look closely, you’ll see a square 2nd “tender” just bwhind the tank
track pans were at Glenoden Pa, Newark Del and I think they had them at Northeast Md on the NY-Wash run. the PRRT&HS had a big issue a couple of years ago on the track pans through out the system and the locations.
Several prior posts mentioned that only passenger locomotives were equipped to scoop water. I too had thought this to be the case until I read Low Water, Close Call in the Summer 2015 Classic Trains. In that article, author Richard Borsos notes that the freight locomotive he was firing, NYC H-10b 2381, scooped water at the Avery, MI pans. The way Borsos mentions it, almost casually, I take it that this was normal.
Rail fanning is going to get boring one of these days … when I quit learning something new all the time.
PRR equipped their freight power with water scoops. A quick check of “Pennsy Power” showed side views of tenders of 2-8-0, 2-8-2, 2-10-0, 2-10-2, 2-10-4 and 4-8-2 locomotives with such gear and quite a few action photos of such power scooping water.
The pan display you seen was probably the one at the museum in Strasburg, they came from the pans in Wilmore PA. Also, in Wilmore a local resident who lives in the area of the pans location found a section left behind and built a nice display in the front yard of his house. This display includes bricks which he found and some track he aquired to complete his display. His display is located on Pump Station Road (road south of the now NS mainline) and he welcomes anyone in the area to pay a visit and check it out.
B&O only had track pans for passenger. PRR & NYC may have used it for freight in many locations. Higher volume operations would create some severe congestion issues with multiple trains stopping for water from penstocks.
wabash2800
In my reading, IIRC, at least on the NYC, there were lamps (blue or green?) on posts at trackside at the point where the scoop should be lowered and where it should be raised. This was very important, because if a scoop was not raised in time, it could hit a road crossing or other obstruction. An article in the NYCSHS Headlight magazine some years ago was about a mighty 4-8-4 Niagara during WWII that rolled over as a result of that error. The cab was engulfed with soil and ballast. And a nurse on-board the train saved the engineer’s life with her quick thinking by reaching into his mouth and throat and removing the debris. IIRC, this incident happened at Lydick, Indiana. We also had another track pan in Indiana on the NYC near Corunna that I know of. One tale that is often told about track pans in the old days is that of finding hobos frozen to death (riding the rods under the cars) encrusted with ice and frozen to the cars after being sprayed by the track pans in very cold weather. In addition to the track pans, the pans had to be heated in cold weather, have a water supply with water tank nearby and be attended–another example of steam locomotive infrastructure that doomed the iron horse. Years ago I met a guy that was the attendant at Corunna, Indiana.(Life was so much simpler, less costly and not so labor intensive with diesels, of course.) Victor A. Baird www.erstwhilepublications.com
It wasn’t fear of hitting a road crossing, it was hitting the end of the pan itself. The scoop had to be lowered several inches below track level to get into the water. And that pan had sides and ENDS. Some scoops were “removed” due to raising it too late and some were lo