I am doing late steam era. Working on my roundhouse/turntable/yard area. I figure there should be somewhere for the locos to dump their ashes. Looking for ideas of how to model that facility. What would the dump pit (?) look like and how would the ashes be removed from that pit?
thanks
wdcrvr
There are several threads on this topic including this one.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/212753.aspx?sort=ASC&pi314=1
Also, get your hands on the Kalmbach book titled The Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals.
http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12228.html
Rich
Alton Junction
wDCRVR,
Kalmbach Books has one called, The Model Railroaders Guide To Locomotive Servicing Terminals,by Marty McGuirk,,that is very informative,with many pic's, or you can Google your Question and there are a lot of sites there,,,,,,,Too many for me to give you links to,,,this way you could pick the one you want to read..
Cheers,
Frank
Here are links to previous threads on the subject..
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/13/t/212753.aspx
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/173933.aspx?sort=DESC
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/102692.aspx?sort=DESC
Cheers, the Bear
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
richhotrain Also, get your hands on the Kalmbach book titled The Model Railroader's Guide to Locomotive Servicing Terminals. http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12228.html Rich
zstripe Kalmbach Books has one called, The Model Railroaders Guide To Locomotive Servicing Terminals
Kalmbach Books has one called, The Model Railroaders Guide To Locomotive Servicing Terminals
Is there an echo in the room?
RICH,
Plain and simple,,you said once,we think alike,,,,,,so we answered at the same time,,,your five badges,are red,mine are black,,so they gave you top billing.....
Don't You have to go Golfing, or something today?
zstripe RICH, Plain and simple,,you said once,we think alike,,,,,,so we answered at the same time,,,your five badges,are red,mine are black,,so they gave you top billing..... Don't You have to go Golfing, or something today? Cheers, Frank
To the early bird goes the worm, Frankie.
Tee time at 8, see you there.
If you want to get creative, you can put the ash pit somewhere else entirely.
My old hometown had a law against locomotives dumping ashes in town (frankly, between the glass plant, Pullman, a steel mill, a couple refineries, and so on...drop in the bucket guys). They had to build a pit a few miles out of town.
If HO, perhaps this Walthers Cornerstone kit would be of interest:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3181
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
The ash pit at Cumbres on the Cumbres and Toltec looks like a small basement, open on one side, bridged with rails laid without ties on a couple of I-beams. The floor is above pickup bed height. The ashes move from concrete floor to truck the old fashioned way, one scoopful at a time.
The JNR ash pit at Yoshizuka was the diametric opposite - just a depressed area, concrete lined, with the rails passing across on I beams with about 200mm clearance under them. Ashes were dumped, raked out and hosed down to quench any remaining fire. Later they were raked to one side, then hand-shoveled into drop-side gons. The gons had delivered coal to the coaling platform, which was on the same track. The one thing both had in common was the need to hand shovel dusty, nasty stuff.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with coal-burning steam and ash pits)
The CPR, at the end of this branchline in Goderich, had a very simple ashpit. Two rails on the concrete side walls of the pit. The ashes were later cleaned out of the pit by hand and into a waiting gondola for dumping somewhere else; possibly even as ballast.
A picture showing this round house area is about halfway down this page: http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/CPR_London/history_G_and_G.htm .
Steve
I am going to do something like this. Easy to do if you have 2" of foam on the bench. Just carve away. One thing about ash pits is, there seems to be no two alike. I will also use rail for the vertical supports as I have seen many done that way.
This is a CPR facility somewhere in BC.
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Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Another thought.
Ash pit design is driven by the design of the locos that use the facility. If all of them have narrow, between-the-frame fireboxes, the pit can be a simple hole between the tracks. At the opposite extreme are Wootten-firebox anthracite burners with ash hoppers outside the wheels - and outside the tie lines of ordinary track. In that case the ash pit had better be at least fourteen feet wide.
Also, some ash pits, like the one in the photo, are long enough to allow ashes to be dumped almost at random. Others require precision spotting. The latter frequently have mechanical ash removel equipment and/or are aligned with other servicing points for fuel and (most frequently in photos I've seen) water.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Honestly, why make it very complicated?
you could use "artistic license" {instead of poetic license}.
At Steamtown National Historic Park in Scranton, PA, the "ash pit" is nothing more than a section of track near the yard with the rails over a concrete pad {the pad is where the ballast in between the rails would be} on which they dump the ashes, and when cooled, are picked up by a shovel a and a front end loader later. There is no "pit", nothing complicated. Just a pile of ashes {and klinkers} left behind on the concrete pad betwixt the rails.
BUT, at the most, they dump ashes twice a day on two locos when running the steam locos. Once when they are brought out for the day's use, and once when put away.
Granted in older days, with lots of locos in the servicing area, a deeper "pit" might have been required, but it would depend on how many locos you service.
A big yard servicing lots of locos daily would need the pit, one servicing just a few, not much of a pit.
So just a "marked area" with a fake pile of a few "ashes {and "cinders"} would work to simulate the ash pit area.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
We used the Walther's kit for ours:
Not the most ideal location, but I got one in there. It's sitting behind the coaling tower, with the gondola sitting on the tail end of the coal dump track for the tower. Trying to fit a small steam service facility inside of a 4x8 was a challenge to say the least.
I happened upon this vintage video of N&W No. 602 in service, and being serviced, yesterday on the Youtube "Steam Channel".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH_o5xZ8wRU
At minute 11:17 the ash pit car is seen in operation! Rare footage, indeed. Most vintage tape we ever get a look at of steam locomotives are done by someone who never had modeler's in mind, and useful details like this are next to impossible to find. I intend to model this with brass profile, it is exceedingly simple in form and structure while obviously very efficient, and takes up a minimum of space.
Pit details will likely differ depending on the scale. Large operations could have very complicated and interesting implementation.
A basic consideration is the absence of 'flammable' structure at the dump point. If you're modeling 'best practice' there are some additional desirables: the ash and any remaining unburnt fuel should be actively quenched quickly; the entire mass from ashpan and grates of any particular locomotive should be wholly quenched and removed from 'above the rails' when dumped; subsequent recovery of the ash should be easy and, where possible, mechanized.
What I've seen to implement this: put the rails on longitudinal steel or concrete beams, supported over a pit on posts. The pit extends laterally to 'far enough' beyond the rails that all the dumped ash goes down. Note that in most cases the ashpan will be 'sluiced' with a hose as part of its cleaning; water in the pit can do the rest of the quenching if desired.
I have seen skip cranes used to pull the ashes up; I believe some systems used portable conveyors to a convenient car on an adjacent track for disposal. I recall there being some discussion about separating 'reusable' fuel from ashes and clinker, but I have no recollection of the extent that might have been done. (Some roads used clinker for ballast, and 'coal' might foul it...)
Be sure to put up signage reminding your crews to watch their step around the pit! I'd also arrange for some lighting, both above and below. (And lighting and steam effects when you "dump", too!)