Placing coaling tower and water tower

Thanks. 

Classic Toy Trains published a book on Steam Locomotive Servicing Facilities.  You can check it out if you wish.   And of course, it's your railroad so place those two items wherever you see fit.  Btw - your layout looks good!  Enjoy and have fun!

Coaling tower.

Water stand pipe off the Turntable.

A water tower along the track to fill a corner of the layout.

 Here is my current Lionel Coal Tower that I weathered with some sponges 

Al

TrumpTrain: thanks for the compliment and good advice. My alternative site is a corner for the coaling tower for the same reason you placed a water tower in the corner.  Great looking layout!

Albertstrains:   The coaling  tower looks teriffic!

albertstrains posted:

 Here is my current Lionel Coal Tower that I weathered with some sponges 

Al

How did you modify the tower? it looks  very cool.

JDADDY, thanks for this pic. I have the room to add the coal house and pit..., I like it.

ToledoEd posted:

JDADDY, thanks for this pic. I have the room to add the coal house and pit..., I like it.

An excellent suggestion. In addition, one thing to remember; don't place your coaling tower so close to a building. In prototype practice, the coaling tower/dock was located across any turntable and away from maintenance/repair structures in order to keep all that coal dust away from buildings with people working on locomotives. The general practice for inbound steam locomotives was to first clean the fire and drop all the ashes into the ash pit, then move forward and take coal and water, then move on to the turntable. If the locomotive did not require any repairs or maintenance other than lubrication, the locomotive was turned and then placed on the outbound track for returning to service.

Here's where I placed mine:

Looks good. I wish I had room for a turntable or transfer table.��

 Here are a few more pics of the Tower. Once posted I will describe what I did to it

Al

 Here is what I did to my Coaling Tower:

1) disassemble and remove all detail parts carefully! I left the lites in place and just masked them off for painting

2) all detail parts(stairs, walkways, ladders etc) were painted flat black with Acklands Graniger Demcote enamel in a spray can

3) Hi-lites (handrails, pulleys) were painted using red oxide primer(Acklands Grainger Demcote)

4) main super structure was painted with Testors Light Aircraft Grey and then the pedestal legs base and sloped cone roof was masked off and sprayed with a slightly darker Medium Grey.

5) the bases were removed(glue) from the legs and first I sprayed Testors Light Aircraft Grey for the concrete pilings. Once dry, I masked off the pilings and then sprayed flat black over the coal detail

6) I then used a damp sponge technique, using Tempra water based paint(black brown and white)sold at Micheals. Which is mixed to a charcoal black and then watered down. I then dab my damp sponge into the thinned paint and then squeeze the excess paint from the sponge and lightly apply to the surface of where you would typically see smoke residue.

   The great part is if you don't like what you did, you can just wash it in the sink with warm soapy dish soap to remove and you can start over.

 Once you have detailed, just reassemble and place it back on the layout

Al

Thanks for the excellent instructions and the pics. Very helpful, especially  the part about how easy it is to redo!  I need redo's often. 

......and Albert has two of Canada's finest locomotives spotted under his coaling tower: CPR 4-8-4 and CNR 4-8-4.  Real beauties!

Here is my Lionel Coal Tower from the "old" layout....positioned adjacent to the turntable, ash pit and sanding facilities.

Donald

Here's how my service facilities are laid out:

Rusty

Hi Ed

I have always winged it. I have absolutely no idea how it is really suppose to be. I just copy to the best of my ability what guys and gals do here on this forum. It's fun and that is really all I care about.

Hay, Ed like everyone says it's your railroad.

Since your question and the fact Hot Water seems to be watching I figure heck let me  get hammered. LOL

Here is my two scenes. by my airport ?   1 side steamers and one side diesels.

  The other in my kinda sorta a double coal mine area that is suppose to look like it is is the mountains ????? with a soon to be freight area as well. This area is not completed.

Larry

Still having fun and screwing up.

And you ain' t seen nothing yet, I'm starting new in screwing up G scale as well . hee

Coal facilities are 'usually'  (hate that word) a yard / engine / service tool.  Water towers, while there is usually one in the yard, are all along the right of way.  Coal facilities take some time for each outbound engine to complete filling.  Therefore they are usually on a separate piece of track or at least on a track where other engines can get around the engine being serviced.  Water service is usually much faster so that restriction is not necessary.  So that's the 'usual' placements.  However as others have already stated, it's your railroad, put em where you like em'!    Russ

ChiloquinRuss posted:

Coal facilities are 'usually'  (hate that word) a yard / engine / service tool.  Water towers, while there is usually one in the yard, are all along the right of way.  Coal facilities take some time for each outbound engine to complete filling.  Therefore they are usually on a separate piece of track or at least on a track where other engines can get around the engine being serviced.  Water service is usually much faster so that restriction is not necessary.  So that's the 'usual' placements.  However as others have already stated, it's your railroad, put em where you like em'!    Russ

Russ is speaking in prototypical terms, of course and is correct. Also, prototypically, the coaling facility is NEVER across the turntable in real locomotive servicing facilities. No railroad would dare tie up the turntable for that long, not to mention supplying hopper cars full of coal to resupply the coal dock, having to cross a turntable in order to deliver the coal.

Gents, I really  appreciate the comments.  

Larry, that's  a terrific layout...  I forgot about the diesels, now I need a sand tower to add to the mix.  I love it!..  By the way, is that a Thunderbolt with D-Day markings I see?

Russ, I originally placed the water tower on the mainline  behind the Back shop  then moved it thinking the steamers would  get serviced efficiently in the yard, fix'm and fuel'm...  I also had the Coaling tower on a spur off the outer mainline... I'm going to admire the current placement for a while then decide.  

Thanks everyone.