Hello I was looking for a boiler house but not sure how big it should be? I think it should feed steam to the round house for heat and to preheat a loco? Also to heat the bunker oil tank. Is it a separate building or would it be attached to the round house. I would like to find plans or some photos of one and try to make it myself. Thanks Frank
Boiler houses came in a variety of sizes and designs, ranging from an out-of-service locomotive parked in the roundhouse (usually in the stall against the wall) to a stand-alone building housing a boiler or two. The boilers would be permanently connected to the in-house steam and hot water plumbing. If the oil storage tank was close by, it would probably be serviced by the shop boiler. If it was any distance away it would have its own, much smaller heating plant in an adjacent shed.
How much boiler capacity would be provided would be driven by the amount of steam and heated water the particular engine terminal required. Norfolk and Western's Roanoke shops, which built and serviced articulateds with huge boilers, had the boilers from a couple of its earliest Mallets in shop steam service. Since the size of a stand alone boiler house is driven by the size of the boiler(s) it houses, that one must have been huge.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Do you have a railroad that your line is patterned after? What were the engine servicing facilities of the railroad(s) that you emulate? The Nickle Plate was prominate there in Ohio, for example, and on page 338 of The Nickle Plate Story (author John Rehor) is a 1916 photo of the Mahoning Street engine terminal in Cleveland. The boiler house can be seen to the left of the coal dock on the left. It is adjoining the roundhouse, single story, and identified by the smokestack. I agree that it needs to have a fireproof wall between the boilerhouse and the roundhouse. Usually, boilerhouses had relatively strong walls (brick or stone), with the intent that any boiler explosion would be directed upward to protect workers in the area.
Bill
Hello I like the sound of using and old loco but does it have to be inside ? I have a 6 stall round house and the oil tank is right by it. I did look at the Walther's boiler house and shop but it looked to modern for late 30's to late 40's or do you think it would be ok. I don't really need a shop I have something I think I can turn into a shop. If you have photos of your boiler house please post it . Thanks Frank
I think that the Walthers " Machine Shop" with boilerhouse would fit your era, but that structure centers on that sizeable machine shop. If you don't need one... Have you looked at the structures of the Walthers Cornerstone Series "Greatland Sugar Refining"? That includes a small boilerhouse (4 1/4" x 2 3/4") and smokestack. If the other buildings would suit another purpose on your layout, that could be adapted.
The photos I have seen of an otherwise out-of-service locomotive serving as a steam source have that locomotive outside... perhaps on a radiating track adjacent to the roundhouse. Some sort of piping would be needed to convey the steam into the building.
One of the last SP engines under steam, was a 2-8-0 that was retained on a isolated, disconnected siding to provide house steam at the 3rd and Townsand Street depot in San Francisco until at least 1962, so yes, there are examples for using surplus locomotives, in a similar vein, SP salvaged an ancient narrow guage ten wheeler, bound for the scrap yard to provide emergency steam at it's Colfax, Ca roundhouse during WWII.
Dave
As I think about it, most of the examples that come to mind of locomotives being used as stationary boilers come from the period near the end of steam. There are several locomotives that survive today because they were being used as stationary boilers while their kin went to the scrapper. Locomotives are valuable assests to a railroad, so one selected for such use would most likely be older and likely have some major running gear problem that would be costly to repair. A locomotive in that use still needs a method of getting fuel, so unless it is converted to oil some "clamshell" or something would need to deliver coal.
For a time frame of the 1930's, the more common steam supply would likely be a boiler house, as the facility would have been built with that as part of the plan.