Single Water Tower Servicing 2 Mainlines?

[railandsail]

I had one of those water bridges on my last layout,...servicing the multiple steam locos as they left the yard. Mine was a simple IHC one, not near as nice as that one you have.

I think I will use one of them one my new layout to service the steam locos leaving the coaling tower. Maybe I'll put up the plastic one to start out, then make nicer one later on when I get time.

I have a wye turnout in my upper track plan near the logging area. I thought I might locate a single big wooden water tower between the tracks with spours reaching out to both tracks. Just wanted to be sure it was possibility.

 

 

 

[BigDaddy]

Cumbres & Toltec at Chama has a double sided water tank

[gmpullman]

The PRR and B&O used "water bridges" in congested areas to speed up the watering process.

PRR_plug1 by Edmund, on Flickr

I scratched one using a few girder components and Tichy spout pieces:

IMG_9771_fix_w by Edmund, on Flickr

IMG_9766_fix_w by Edmund, on Flickr

IMG_9760_fix_w by Edmund, on Flickr

There were a few photos on Flickr showing a present-day signal bridge over the N-S former PRR main that still had the rigging for the water spouts attached!

190516_2_lilly by lmyers83, on Flickr

Photo by L.R. Myers

Thank You, Ed

[BATMAN]

I am trying to find a photo of a two spout water tower that was just down the track from a station. Up past the station were two standpipes that could fill a couple of engines at the same time while the train was stopped at the station.

You can use a lot of imagination and do what you please, it probably exists somewhere.

[doctorwayne]

cuyama

By the way, in real life railroads usually opted for separate water cranes at the necessary trackside locations and a water tower located elsewhere nearby as convenient.

 

Quite true, and some of those water towers also supplied water for track pans, on the roads where pans were used.

Three of my layout's water towers  are directly on the single-tracked mainline, while other areas use standpipes supplied from a larger tower at a somewhat removed location.

 

For example, in Mount Forest the two temporarily-positioned stand pipes shown here (from Tichy kits) are supplied from the large water tower in the centre-distance of the photo...

 

 

 

....I may add another standpipe somewhere within the same town, which extends for some distance, out of view, to the left.

 

In Dunnville, one standpipe is quite close to the water tower...

 

 

 

...while a second one, supplied by the same tank, is some distance down the tracks....

 

 

...just visible in the photo below (beneath the walkway between the National Grocers buildings)

 

 

 

Both of these standpipes use Grandt Line spouts, while the bases, details, and supply pipes are scratchbuilt, using the Tichy version as a pattern.  The Grandt Line spouts have a longer reach than the Tichy ones, so these two can each service both tracks.

 

Here's one of the ones with the Grandt Line spout, on the right, alongside a Tichy standpipe....

 

 

South Cayuga/Cayuga Junction, although not yet very well developed, also uses a remote tank of the same design to supply two Tichy standpipes.  Because the two mainlines are close together, both spouts can service both tracks.  This town is where the Erie Northshore's tracks (with the light-coloured ballast in the right foreground) join those of the Grand Valley, so it's a fairly busy place...

 

 

 

 

The Erie Northshore uses mostly trackside wooden water tanks, from Atlas.  I replaced the Atlas spouts with ones from Tichy, and also used wire and nbw castings to add strengthening rods to the tanks' supports.  Here's the Elfrida tank...

 

 

 

Both of the Northshore's tanks use well-water, supplied by separate pumphouses...

 

 

Here's the tank, also a modified Atlas kit, at Lowbanks....

 

 

 

Park Head, located at the top of the hill leading to the partial upper level of the layout, is on Grand Valley tracks, but uses a trackside water tower.  I may add a standpipe to allow it to also service the second track.
This one was scratchbuilt by my father, over 60 years ago, working from an article, written by Lloyd Giebner, in the February 1957 issue of Model Railroader. 

 

He used Northeastern scribed basswood sheet, over a cardboard tube, for the tank, but built the support structure using balsa (not surprising, since his hobby was model airplanes and gliders, and he built some very impressive ones).  The spout and counterweights are from brass tubing, while the banding is paper.

 

 

The tank's support members were showing their age, so a couple of years ago, I replaced them using Evergreen strip styrene.  The bracing rods are phosphor-bronze wire from Tichy, with nbw detail from Grandt Line.  The footings are from Tichy.

 

Wayne

[cuyama]

By the way, in real life railroads usually opted for separate water cranes at the necessary trackside locations and a water tower located elsewhere nearby as convenient.

[cuyama]

An Internet image search for "railroad two spout water tank" yields a few examples.

 

[wjstix]

Not on a mainline, but Northern Pacific's Hill Ave. ore yard in Superior WI had a water tower between the yard tracks and the line going up to their ore dock. It had spouts on both sides so could serve steam engines on either track.

[hardcoalcase]

I'm thinking the most likely scenario would be a standing water pipe placed between two parallel tracks - a multi-track main or a main and a siding.  The water tower could be located a bit back from the tracks.

Don't know of a specific example, but heck... there's a prototype for everything!

Jim

[railandsail]

Can someone point me to an example were a single water tower (steam locomotive era) serviced 2 mainline tracks?

 

Perhaps at a wye?
Perhaps the water tower had two discharge nozzles, one either side??