? location of coaling and water towers

You'll find ash pits, sanding, coaling, and water towers adjacent to engine houses. In addition water and coaling towers would be seen and on sidings adjacent to mainlines. A water column would be found at the outer limit of a yard area. Running out of water is a lot worse than running out of coal.

Water columns were commonly found adjacent to passenger/freight stations. Depending upon the tender design, there was not a balance between the coal and water loads.

Locomotives frequently would need to replenish water before coal. That is why N&W added auxiliary water tenders.

from my understanding, steam era operations for larger railroads were split up into divisions.  at division points, crew and/or locomotive changes were made to through service.  it was mostly at these stops where coaling facilities were located.

not only was tender water capacity depleted faster than fuel, but no engineer was going to let the tender water level get very low, so multiple water stops were typically located along the route between division points.  versus coaling infrastructures, remote water facilities were also much easier to maintain and service.

cheers...gary

It's also not unusual to have a water tower out in the boonies, as long as there's a water source nearby...

Rusty

I have two tracks leading to my engine shed - on those two is a coal tipple along with a water spout and sand tower.  This area is going to be redone this winter with a IHC engine house and Lionel concrete coal tower.

Here a pic of two deferent ones. One is in the engine yard. The other is on the main line.

  Hope this helps.

I did not know they (coal) could also stand over mainlines. Thanks, Hah3, for your illustrated perspective.

Garrett76, My coal, water, sand, and engine-house are all configured into a "Service Yard" which seemed to me to be something I had seen as a youth (40's; 50's; 60's) in Pennsylvania. On my layout, steam locomotives can pull off the mainline to enter the yard for servicing/recoaling/additional water.

Frankly, I don't actually know if centralizing all those elements into a "yard" is prototypical or not, but it sure is a favorite spot on mine on my layout.

I'm sure somebody will tells us, so here are a few more shots of my service yard to, perhaps, facilitate that instruction.

In these two shots, a sand"house" is on the left of the coal...

...and here is where coal hoppers deliver coal to the facility..

Great responses, thanks everyone!

In the small town I grew up in, the water tower was some distance from the station,

but in walking distance, and close to a trestle over a creek, the presumed water

source.  This was high enough to be out of flood reach.  As in the Rusty Traque photo above, I have certainly seem them standing alone far from any other human activity.

That photo looks like it might be on the eastern end of the Cumbres and Toltec.

I am glad to read this info from you, Colorado Hirailer, because I have three stations on my layout and have been consistently loathe, throughout several re-do's since 1995, to locate water tanks within the precincts of passenger stations. Somehow, it did not make sense to do so, imaging a sloppy spillage of water during such an activity, not a nice thing to do around nicely dressed travelers. However, my experiences only include the Northeast of the USA, and certainly not everywhere there, either, let alone country-wide. I'm learning in this thread what might be the correct, or at least the prototypical arrangement to have.

FrankM.

I took these pictures back in April,but just goggled to see why it was there. It was built by the Southern Pacific in the 1920's. Since then the course of the water ,tracks and certainly the interstate have made it a relic of the past. It says there were up to 12 buildings built around this jerkwater stop.

Azgary

Originally sited in 1885 by the Southern Pacific Railroad as a watering stop for its locomotives, Rillito was initially located on the east side of what is now Interstate 10. The black 200,000 gallon water tower easily seen from I-10 today north of Avra Valley Road is what remains of the 12 structures that were built on the site in the late 1920s.

Hi OGR'ers.

I grew up near Albany, NY. NYC division point where B&A branched off to Boston.  Rensselaer, on the east side of Hudson, had a huge engine facility with several tracks to service locomotives with all their needs.  None the less, on the north end of Albany's Union station where the six passenger loading tracks came together, there was a water stand which had its own storage remotely, up the hill.  Many of the passenger trains were "topped up" while loading passengers.  Especially west bound because the West Albany Hill, climbing out of the river bottom to proceed on the main line towards Chicago, consumed large amounts of steam.  Hudson Locos often were assigned pushers so they could reliably make the climb and Mohawks were used during WWII, when all trains were maxed out.  So even a busy down town station could well have a stand.

Phil

I like the look of  your facility very much, Pennsynut, for sure, esp. including the use and placement of various sheds among all the major pieces, like the building next to the water tower which seems right there, IMHO. Cool.

And thanks very much for expressing your approval of my yard.

FrankM.

PhilJ, When you say "stand" do you mean like I have pictured here, a kind of stand-pipe (my word for it, not knowing the proper term) that could be swiveled around to provide water in the yard to waiting locomotives?

..here is that "stand-pipe" (on the left) from a different vantage point. A regular water tank (on the right in this photo) stands ready to service water to a different track in the complex...

Perhaps, one can see both water facilities, the tank & the pipe, in this vantage-point of the yard...

This tank has no "spout" but is intended ,in my imagination, as the "reservoir" for the stand-pipe.

FrankM.

Yes Moonson, that is absolutely correct.  Not actually on the passenger loading platform, but only a few yards beyond (so as to discourage passengers or others from wandering down to have a look, I suspect.)  It was a high speed/capacity pipe so as not to delay the departure.

Phil

Facilities? What facilities? Such luxury!

Check the water-box in the creek and the Shay probably siphoning it up with a steam venturi of some kind.

And here's and even simpler set-up from the present day, but the method is similar.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.n...Thumbs.aspx?id=85631