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The blower on either an oil fired or coal fired engine would not be forceful enough to cause sand to be drawn through the flues. The locomotive must be working hard with the valve gear near full gear. Some locomotives (oil burners) had a foot operating damper when closed caused more draft at the firedoor hole helping the sanding operation. Santa Fe 2900 class had a device hooked to the sand box that looked like a steam cleaner wand only bigger pipe. It was air fed and connected to the sand box bottom. The wand was introduced through the firedoor hole and then actuated by depressing the damper. This way sand could be directed around the tube sheet and especially towards any flues that were plugged. I do not know which other RRs had this device. The Santa Fe Redondo Junction steam facility had a roundhouse, sand tower, oil and lube oil tanks in the basement of a separate building. Also a large boiler house and water tanks filled from wells on the property. The whisker tracks all had inspection pits. No ash pits though. The drop table was within the roundhouse. Each stall in the roundhouse had a steam connection that would be hooked to locomotives in order to keep them hot. The roundhouse stalls had inspection pits and a grated drain at the end towards the turntable. Behind the roundhouse was the locker/showers facility.
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