Randy Gordon-Gilmore wrote:
>
> I have two Q coaling tower modeling articles--a 40-ton (Railroad Model
> Craftsman, May 1985), and the Eola 150-ton (Mainline Modeler, June 1984).
> (Heck, I didn't even know where Eola was until I just looked it up in
> Mapquest--I'm from Nebraska...) But I have no idea of the size of traffic
> each would have served. Could someone clue me in?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Randy (the clueless...)
Randy
Good Question, I don't know myself and hadn't even thought about it.
There was another type of tower the Q had and that was the Ogle tower, I
have a picture of an Ogle tower at Fairmont,Neb in 1912 amd another at
Wray, CO. There was an article on Ogle towers in the May 1983 Mainline
Modeler. A quote from that article "thus the design criteria that
coaling towers should hold the equivelent of a three-day supply. Design
specififations also call for replenishment at the rate of a full days
supply in an eight-hour shift"
Now a little figuring, for examples an O-1 holds 13 tons and a K-4
tender holds 9 tons of coal. So a 40 ton tower could fill 3 O-1's or 4.4
K-4's before it would need to be refilled, if you assume the engines
come in half full already then you double it to 6 and 9. Now with a
three day supply that reduces it to 2 O-1's or 3 K-4's a day if they are
only half full.
A 150 ton tower would be able to fill 11.5 O-1's or 16.5 K-4's before it
would have to be refilled. Again if the engines come in only half full
then you could fill 23 and 33 respectively. Again with a three-day
supply that reduces it to 7.5 O-1's or 11 K-4's a day if they are only
half full. This assumes the tower was filled at night and would fill
that meny engines in a day. In reality filling a coal tower was a
constant thing. However this does give us a vague idea how many engines
it could service.
Now an O-5a taking 27 tons would really affect this.
If someone has more knowledge about this jump in and let the rest of us
know. If I feel a swift kick in the rear for my figuring I can take it.
8^)
Ken Martin
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