Progress is continuing slowly on my HO scale locomotive facility for my rail yard. I have a watering and sand facility built with the Walthers Cornerstone kit. I also have built the fueling area using the Walthers Cornerstone kit and lastly I am working on the Walthers Diesel shop. Aside from slow progress everything is going well. I’ve decided add a large oil storage tank in another part of the layout and haul the diesel fuel to the unloading area in the servicing facility. Likewise I have a dump pit for sand and a front loader to move the sand to the holding/drying area. The last thing I have realized is that I don’t have a water tank to hold the water. I don’t know how many rail yards have water tanks for locomotive water (modern diesel era). I have space near the diesel fuel tank to add a water tank. I am looking at the Rix Products tank:
It looks modern era enough and will fit. I was wondering if anyoen can comment on whether they’ve seen water tanks in yards and whether they have any experience with this particular kit. Any pictures that folks have would be appreciated. I plan to post some pictures this weekend of my progress.
I saw that but the description talks more about steam or early diesel era. It looked more 1950-1960s to me. I’ll give it some consideration. I’ll poke around to see if I can find any rail yard pictures. I am beginning to believe that most modern rail yards don’t need large water tanks because diesels don’t need a lot of fresh cooling water like steam locomotives.
Thanks. The rail yard backs up against the town. We model railroaders pack as much as we can into small spaces. I’ll continue to poke around to see if I want to put a water tank in the town. I looked at some rail yard pictures on-line and didn’t see any water tanks so my problem appears to be solved for now. Of course now I have some space to fill, where the water tank would have gone.
Does your era include working steam locomotives or not? Water tanks were easier to remove than big concrete coal facilities so while some yards did retain their concrete coaling tower well into the modern era (Galesburg had its coal tower into the 1980s for example and there are still some standing on the UP’s former Chicago & North Western trackage in Wisconsin and Illinois) and often kept the sanding facility in operation if it was attached to the coal tower, water tanks were easier to remove and were largely gone from busy yards by 1960 Having said that however, even in Galesburg the water tank was separate from the water columns themselves and the water columns were left in place for a long time. Eventually they were moved to the area of the depot and museum in Galesburg. This internet site has a nice drawing of the water column, separate from the tank itself, that is of the sort seen in Galesburg and elsewhere. So you could include the water column on your layout and simply argue that the water tower is either gone or is still there and in use but is somewhere off the edge of the layout. Those water columnns take up a lot less space!
If you have the Walthers steel water tank kit there is another use for it even on a post-steam layout. Several towns along the former CB&Q still have their old steel water tanks, but they were converted to holding grain! Mendota IL is a good example of this but there are others.
Any water tank in a yard today is going to be one left from when steam was being used so the worst thing you can do in my opinion is to go with a modern design. The RIX tank appears to my eyes to be a European design as I have never seen a tank like that anywhere in the USA. Most engine terminals did not have the water tank right at track side. It was near the bolier house or somewhere else off to the side. Just the water column for adding water was near the tracks to save valuable space in the engine terminal area.
No, I don’t have any steam era locomotives at all. The grain storage is an interesting idea but I hadn’t purchased anything yet. I may just fill the empy space with things like wheelsets and other locomotive and rolling stock parts.
just a thought, why not model the footings of the old water tower, with junk laid in among the footings. it would give you a sense of time passing on the layout.
After considerable thought, I picked up a RIX 60’ flat top Water/Oil tank. I’ve assembeld it down to half of its height, 30 feet. I painted it flat black and am putting some decals on it now. I’ll set it in the open space and see what it looks like. I’ll post a picture for opinions.
