Water for Thirsty Tenders

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Being a transition age railroad (mostly 'cause I like steamers and diesels) my steamers need a water tank. So a while ago I picked up this unpromising looking fellow at a train show for pennies.

The spout is missing, the tank is unpainted plastic, but the price was right. Sometime later I picked up a cast metal spout, offered as detail parts by some hardworking supplier. An article by Roy Foreman in the December 2010 MR was very helpful, especially as prototype water towers vanished with the steam engines 50 years ago. Foreman showed the rigging for raising and lowering the spout. This called for a couple of HO scale pulleys. Somehow my junk box was bare, I could not find any buttons the right size but I did find this.

Useful tool. Makes six different sizes of holes or discs. Punched 0.040 inch styrene, no sweat. Which furnished my pulleys. After a bit more fiddling and a lot of painting, I have this

The tank was sprayed with flat olive drab and then given a couple of washes of gray. I’m trying for that mossy gray green look that wood water tanks take on after many seasons full of water. The lightning rod is a white glass bead on a piece of 0.020 " brass wire. The depth gauge came with the spout kit. The drums contain kerosine for the stove. Not quite sure what the stove was for, but the original kit had the stove pipe, and where there’s a stove pipe there has gotta be a stove. Right. The brick work came with the mortar lines picked out in white. It wasn’t bad, but I thought the brick was too pink and the mort

2

Very nice work David, that came out really really nice. Your truly a star in my book.

Sam

3

Nice job of resurrecting a basket case.

That’s a cold-weather tank, which is why the stove. Think Canada, Northern Minnesota, Montana or the Colorado high country.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

4

A good save and recovery Dave. I recently saw one very similar to that on an online Gov. archive. I have been trying to locate the pic and post it. It was in the Rockies had the brick base/room underneath but had two water spouts as a track ran either side of the tower.

Most cold weather enclosed water towers in Canada were made out of wood from what I have seen through old photo’s. However I have seen a few like the one you have there on Canadian RRs. I am wondering how popular the brick based ones were in the United States? I imagine the brick was more common in Europe but I could be wrong.

I was once told by a RR historian that Canadian RR architecture was more heavily influenced by European architecture than the U.S. RR architecture was. While wood for a water tower makes sense in North America, there are a few trees over here after all, I wonder if the ones built out of brick are that way because some manager of infrastructure simply said “build it with brick because that’s the way we do it at home”.

Just a few thoughts.

Brookmere B.C.

Brent[C):-)]