I’m trying to build a scale model of a water tower for my garden railroad, and have some questions. How did the old steam-era water towers work? Specifically, when they pull down the spout, how was the valve opened to release the water? In all the films I’ve seen, the water comes out as soon as the spout is pulled down, yet the spout doesn’t appear to be attached to a valve.
The prototype I’m modeling no longer has a spout or any of the rigging, so I’m having a little trouble figuring out how to replicate that stuff. Haven’t been able to find any decent pics online either.
What you think is the spout isn’t. It’s basically a funnel. The actual spout and valve is generally located at the trackside edge of the tank and shoots water into the funnel after it’s been spotted to run the water into the tender. The water is turned on via a system of levers or cables that shut off when they’re released (usually). The spout/funnel is hung so that when released it swings parrallel to the track and out of the way. It’s pulled into position to fill the tender by a long hook that’s carried on the tender deck and when in position the fireman opens the valve (after first firmly planting is foot on the funnel to keep it in position after the water starts to flow.)
What you think is the spout isn’t. It’s basically a funnel. The actual spout and valve is generally located at the trackside edge of the tank and shoots water into the funnel after it’s been spotted to run the water into the tender. The water is turned on via a system of levers or cables that shut off when they’re released (usually). The spout/funnel is hung so that when released it swings parrallel to the track and out of the way. It’s pulled into position to fill the tender by a long hook that’s carried on the tender deck and when in position the fireman opens the valve (after first firmly planting is foot on the funnel to keep it in position after the water starts to flow.)
If you ever come across it, there’s a video (probably not ever put out on DVD) of a training film that was put out by Great Northern in 1946 called “Safe Switching” that shows how to water a steam engine - how to pull the funnel over, how to turn the water on, etc. Interesting film overall, lots of details a model railroader would love !!
For most of the time it was in Bellows Falls VT, Steamtown USA had a fully operational water tower near the access road crossing, south of the Riverside depot. The H2O (water to those of you in Rio Linda) was pumped into the tower by an electric pump, and fed the steamers from the early '60s until the end in 1982. It fell into disrepair and has been torn down since then.[sigh]
All spouts had a valve attached to the main feed pipe, procedure was to pull down spout, insert into tank opening, place body weight via a leg on spout to offset the pending force of the water, and gradually open the valve until desired flow was obtained, if done correctly the fireman was not left swinging mid air from the spout!!! Valves could be actuated via by a pull chain or rope pulley system that could be operated from the tender deck, still others could be tank mounted with a extended valve rod , a third type employed a extended rod and valve handle that also lowered with the spout assembly, either version was designed for one hand operation, it depended on the indvidule road and tender sizes…
ok… I believe most of us get that fact of the fireman doing the work… pulling down the arm… But… how does the water tank fill… Many parts of this country did not have regular rain fall nor nearby streams… perhaps there could be a ‘pumping system’ in some case?? like to see this on some of these railroad water tanks… thank you
Depending on the part of the country there were many ways of filling the water towers. Some were fed by artesian wells, some were pumped by on site steam engines, then electric motors, and some water towers on the prairies were pumped by windmills. Typically there was a water source nearby of some kind, either a well, a river, or a lake.
In the desert areas of the Southwest in some cases water had to be pumped in from dozens, if not hundreds of miles away, which influenced the decision to dieselize on some railroads, but that’s another story.
In older days, PRR liked providing water-tower (and some track pan) locations close to where gravity feed from a stream or pond would be easy to arrange.
I wish remains of these railroad facilities, at least some of them, had been well preserved because 2500 years later they would become archaeological sites. [angel][alien]
To my knowledge no track-pan has been preserved anywhere. I’m sure they disappeared not too long after 100% dieselization was accomplished.
I’m not sure if any there’s any preserved tenders with the track pan scoops intact. Maybe, but I just don’t know.
I don’t any tourist operations would be interested in recreating track pans, most tourist runs just aren’t long enough to make such an installation worthwhile. And most certainly don’t run the trains fast enough to begin with for the concept to work.
2500 years from now?! You really think ‘people-kind’ is going to make it that far. If we don’t all wipe each other out then A.I. will. I would say the likelihood of any human being existing on Earth in 4520 is zero. Targeted DNA destructon, no more hu-mans.
The CASO installed track pans around Fargo, Ontario ( not North Dakota) in the '52-'54 years, kind of late, for the NYC Hudson’s. It would not surprise me if they just let them be after those other things replaced steam. Perhaps when they lifted the rail they were buried. Need someone down that way in SW Ontario to walk the area.
That’s an interesting question. British engines don’t count. Doesn’t the tender on 3001 in Elkhart have one?
I don’t think any instance of the Kiefer-improved high-speed scooping arrangement with the multiple vents has survived. But it would be possible to re-create one from the drawings at NYCSHS, or as provided to George Kohs.
You can scoop quite happily at excursion speed; you just need to design things accordingly. And, even at slow speeds, remember that lift pumps aren’t just for diesels…
You could combine the fun of a water park with the visual thrill of scooping in the appropriate photo line!
Generally steel tanks were used for storage and were piped to water cranes where track congestion precluded large, wood towers.
I say “generally” because there were alway’s variations. I’ve seen actual locomotive tender tanks supported on trestle bents or even old tank car tanks used in stationary water service. Others here will have more information than I have to offer.
The PRR 16-wheel long-haul tender No. 6659 acquired by T1 Trust lost the track pan scoops, wasn’t it? I can’t wait to see a 60mph “scoop stunt” by the 5550 in the future (if I still living on this planet ten years later), that would attract a lot of “non-railfan” come and test their professional cameras …or their new phones…
No worries, Miningman, if it is included in the “script”, the human race, at least some of them will last forever.
I just caught a cold a few hours ago, wanna share my prediction of what A.I would do in the short term. Imagine you walk inside a clinic, 100% running by A.I. (even the doctor and nurse are now jobless, protesting and fighting against the Robot Cops) You step inside a scanner thing, answer some simple questio
I don’t think that tender ever had scooping apparatus. Some argument whether it will get it during the restoration effort. There are no track pans for it to use, and to my knowledge little point in building a new one.
PRR never developed a proper system for high-speed scooping, and it would be difficult to implement one on a 16-wheel passenger tender, especially if attempting to preserve ‘historical’ appearance and structure.
There are some potential approaches for high-speed scooping enabled by more modern technology, such as the ability to scoop on grades provided you have relatively good knowledge of a given train’s timing and location. There is some theoretical value in testing them at full scale, but nothing at all meaningful in terms of getting adequate feedwater for modern steam when running at high speed. Excursions and any high-speed running would not involve scooping as part of their operation.
I was a great and enthusiastic supporter of the Theranos idea right from the get-go; in fact, I still am. There is no question that much of ‘wellness care’ can be made cost-effective with intelligent technology, properly applied; that in turn makes much of the routine care for chronic conditions amenable to cost-effective management too. What’s left may, actually, be within the resources of a society to subsidize… whether privately implemented or not.
What is certain is that ‘health insurance’ is entirely the wrong model to base either care or costing on. Whether it’s federally mandated and underwritten or not.
I am grateful for the Health Care System we have. As I’ve stated before it’s easy to do in a country so rich with so much of the worlds resources along three oceans and a small population. Not so easy to do at 10x the population.
Not a big fan of S. Hawkins and his politics but agree with him when he states A.I. will be the biggest threat in the future and the demise of us all. An archeologist in 4520? … won’t be human!
It amazes the heck out of me that track pans actually worked. Sounds like a crazy idea I would come up with and never make it work. Not many used them outside of the NYC. I doubt the world will ever see them again.
Water bombers can scoop water from a lake. That’s a thing!
Likely the very last ones in use anywhere were on the CASO.
Now, that wouldn’t by any chance be Mr. HawkinG you’re talking about, would it? There’s a substantial difference between him and Sadie. [:)]
The problem with AI in a nutshell is that very few of the researchers can help using emergent-complexity approaches to create it. What is needed in almost any human respect is relatively anthropomorphic, or at least anthropophilic, systems; the catch of course (and an easy one to recognize from far enough away) being that the system has to have a ‘personality’ before it can be ‘malevolent’ or whatever to humanity. charlie hebdo may not care much for Yudkowsky’s creds, but he certainly describes a likely method to be used for ‘training’ the basic intelligence. Look up ‘friendly AI’ and you may feel somewhat less threatened.
The ‘Three Laws’ are clever … for the Forties, from a biochemist … but note what they presuppose: that the system in question is interested in listening to arbitrary principles and obeying as a matter of ‘duty’. That stuff won’t work without a number of what are fundamentally agent subsystems running coordinated. And comparatively few of the folks wanting to make a financial or egoboo future out of artificial intelligence seem to have figured out what sort of growth patterns, or education modalities, are appropriate to ‘bringing up’ a system with the complexity and relative plasticity of the human brain and its ways of thinking and cognition.
In a sense, most AI, especially that with undefined emergent complexity, is more fragile than humans with rapidly morphing Y chromosome composition. (If you truly want to be alarmed about the future of humanit
