Working on the engine terminal for our transition-era club layout - we have a steam engine sanding facility (raw sand bin, drying house, and sand delivery as part of a coaling tower) - with a diesel facility some distance away. My question is - how would the diesel sand towers have been supplied? It seems too far to push sand by air pressure from the steam facility. Would the diesel facility have its own sand bin / drying / air service to load those towers? Or would sand be transferred from the steam side by truck?
Thanks for the help
I would speculate that the diesel facility would have it's own sanding system. After all, the steam engines are being phased out. Then there would be no need for the sanding system at the current steam location.
I've seen many diesel sand facilities that had a small covered hopper positioned near by. The sand was drawn from the hopper and forced to the tower by air pressure. Gravity fed it to the locomotive.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Hello all,
On a transition era service facility I don't see a reason a railroad would spend the money to build separate facilities for steam and diesel, at this time.
I would expect that the existing steam service facility would add-on to accommodate the "new-fangled" diesels. This would also include utilizing ad-hoc diesel fueling facilities made from old tankers.
In Marty McGuirk's "The Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals"; Kalembch Publishing Co., 2002, on pg. 57, there is a photo of a transition era service terminal (fig. 7.7) that shows the diesel fuel facilities in the foreground with the coaling and sanding facilities in the background.
That would suggest that the same sanding facility would be used to service all motive power; as early as the nineteen-teens, when diesel/electric motive power was introduced.
On a later era pike I would expect the steam service facilities to be more diesel specific but still utilizing the existing structures from the steam era.
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
I have some photographs of the IC Centralia, IL roundhouse and service area from 1955. The steam and diesel locomotives used the same sanding facility. There was no diesel fuel facility at the time and diesels were fueled from 10,000 gallon tank cars. I have one photo that shows the tank cars spotted next to the tracks where some Geeps were sitting. The hose from the drain on the bottom of the tank car is clearly visible. There is no sign of any kind of pump so I am assuming it was gravity feed.
It looks like the steam engines were serviced in the roundhouse and the diesels were servced on the ready tracks outside of the roundhouse. All of the locomotives used the same area in the yard.
A lot of this depends on when the diesels arrived and what type they are.
If you actually look at a steam sand tower and actually look at a diesel sand tower, look at how they get sand into the engine, you will notice that they don't put sand in the same place and aren't necessarily interchangeable.
A typical steam era sand tower is designed to deliver sand to the sand dome of a steam engine which is on top of the engine in the center. It has a metal spout that dumps sand about 15ft in the air over the center of the track.
If you look at a typical diesel switcher (the first things to dieselize) or and F unit (the first road engines) you will notice that the sand filler hatches are NOT in the center of the unit on the roof. They are on the sides or ends down lower.
There is physically no way to get sand from a steam era sand tower outlet into an early diesel without a bucket.
If you look at a diesel era sand facility it has delivery hoses on either side of the engine that are flexible and can reach the filler hatches on the sides or ends of of the car body. If there isn't then they had to do a bucket brigade to put sand into the engine (why early switchers had big hatches on the sand boxes, to make it easy to fill them by bucket).
The bottom line is you just can't use a steam sand tower to sand diesels. The railroads had to modify the delivery systems to make them work with diesels. If you have road engines you will pretty much have to have a different delivery system or tower. The railroad might have used the existing dryer house and sand storage (which means the two facilities would be near each other or they might have built new storage/delivery systems (which could be anywhere). Quite often they built all new facilities because the steam facilities weren't really suited for diesels.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusmanIf you actually look at a steam sand tower and actually look at a diesel sand tower, look at how they get sand into the engine, you will notice that they don't put sand in the same place and aren't necessarily interchangeable.
Great point about the delivery method to the different motive power.
As with many railroads, often times existing structures were "upgraded" to suite their "modern" needs.
I suggest that a diesel delivery system could be adapted to the existing steam sanding facility without much cost to the railroad.
As the fleet of diesels supersedes the steam power then a completely separate diesel servicing facility would be built, including fueling racks, new sanding and service facilities to accommodate the growing fleet of diesel locomotives.
A way to model this would be to add a diesel sanding tower adjacent to the existing steam sanding facilities.
These sanding towers are found in many kit forms or could be scratch built. Another simple example.
[quote=jjdamnit]I suggest that a diesel delivery system could be adapted to the existing steam sanding facility without much cost to the railroad. [/quote]
Here are some photos of the IC facility at Centralia, IL at the end of the transition area. There were taken by Mike Haper and Don Morice from 1955 to 1962.
This shot was taken from the top of the coaling tower looking north. You can see the sand tower on your left and a sand car, a converted cistern (auxiliary tender), that may have been used to service the diesels with buckets as Dave suggests. In the center you can see the tank cars that were used to fuel the diesels.
A picture of two steam locomotives at the sand tower with some Geeps sitting next to them on the ready track.
A photo from the early 1960s after the steam was gone. There are diesels under the old steam sand tower and it looks like the sand tower has been modified to service diesel locomotives. There is something, a pipe or hose coming down from the left side of the pipe that was used on the steam locomotives. It's not there in the earlier photo showing steam locomotives being serviced. There is still a sand car spotted in front of the sand tower on that elevated track. The tank cars for fuel are still there at the left edge of the photo and you can see the hoses coming from the bottom.
I've not looked into when they rebuilt the facility to provide for servicing diesel locomotives but this is an example of a class one railroad using steam era facilities at a division point facility into the diesel area.