Water tower in the landscape; What's their use?

Trains Magazine General Discussion
21

If you are ever around a railroad bookstore, railroad museum library or fishing around on Amazon, look for CRRM’s Colorado Rail Annual #31 (Bill Reich, 2012), Colorado Railroad Water Tanks which inventories every railroad water tank site in the state and does a good job of explaining the various types, right up to the steel Horton tanks that seem to be everywhere.

Remsen tank pictured is a standard Horton tank.

22

The covered water tower at Fraser, BC on the WP&Y appears to be a multipurpose building adjacent to the depot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser,_British_Columbia#/media/File:Fraser_Depot_WPY.jpg

23

In Florence, Italy is a concrete water tower in the main station, also there are water columns at the ends of the platforms. I was in Italy in 2004 and it seemed like the infrastructure of steam was still in existence everywhere. There was also a 2-6-2 near Florence that must have used for excursions, it sure didn’t look like a derelict. I wish I had pictures, but no.

24

[bow] to K.P. for that photo of the Red Rock, AZ water tank. Someday I hope to get out that way again and get some more photos of it. I believe - but am not certain - it’s now the town’s water tank, as there aren’t any others around.

  • PDN.
25

Thanks everyone for your help. Very appreciated :slight_smile:

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One thing as yet unmentioned here is that wooden tanks were encircled by steel tension rings (exactly akin to barrel hoops) to hold the vertical staves together against the water pressure. The pressure was minimal at the top of the tower so fewer rings were needed there. But the ring spacing decreased toward the bottom of the tank where the pressure was higher. You can see this spacing progression in historical RR photos from the era of steam locomotives.

27

And they were built “leaky” on purpose so the wood would swell-up and seal tight against the collars…odd where some of those rascals wound up. (not hard to figure where the main track tanks were…and then there were the bunker fuel tanks for oil burning steam (memories of the Syracuse KS tar pits - and the night a section truck almost vanished[:^)])