--- In BRHSlist@y..., Randy Gordon-Gilmore <zephyrus@r...> wrote:
> I'm in the planning stages of an N-scale shelf layout. I want to
represent
> a "generic" Q station on a branchline, or maybe a small town along
the
> Ashland-Sioux City mainline.
>
> 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, ken,
first let me state i personally know nothing of steam operations
from my own experience. my information is from my father who
hired out in 1920. my understanding from conversations with him is
that on a trip, over the division of approx 100 mile, they took on
coal once and water approx 5 times. now, i do not know if the
conversations that i recall were whether he was referring to firing in
the early 20's, when he first hired out with the lighter engines of
that time and his seniority allowing him to be on the more
unpleasant runs of way freights and thus light engines with lots of
road switching or if he was referring to trips later on, in the 30's
for example on through freights with heavier engines.
i have no idea what a specific q engine or coaling tower can or
could hold, that i will to leave to the knowledge of the railfans. if
an engine left its home terminal we can assume that it would be full
of coal. using ken's example of a k engine with a 9 ton capacity and
using dads conversations we can guess that they would take on coal
approx half way thru their trip. now how much coal they would
take on is a guess, just to refill their tender with what they had
used thus far would be an equation dependent upon many variables, the
engineer and how good of a runner he was, the fireman and how
good he was, the train and how big it was, the road switching,
setouts and pickups, the delays and how good the brakemen were.
just guessing we can say they took on any where from 4-5 ton to 8-
9 tons. so guess what am saying is probably did not take maximum
coal capacity on every engine when refilling, although it might of
been figured as the worst case use. probably have to remember they
were always `topping off' the tender, although it might of been less
than half full, way less than half full. one thing i remember asking
is `what if?' well, they left their train and went and got coal or
probably most importantly water. this of course with the
dispatchers permission and your train put away somewhere too.
they knew where the closest water was and where the coal was at. i
would imagine they would be asked, by an official, why they ran
out of water or coal also. don't think they were ever very far away
from a coaling location, with the propensity for branches leaving
the main and the jobs that were based out of these outlaying
terminals, the engines being assigned there and thus the need for
coaling towers. if you were on a branch would imagine the coaling
stations were not as frequent as being on the mainline. i do not
know what the pay penalties would be involved if they had to leave
their train and go back (lapback) to get coal or water. will ask some
questions this summer about this and other steam queries.
in my opinion the size of the coaling towers would depend on the
traffic over the road that they were located on. big coal towers at
division points and the ones where they figured everyone would
take on coal, as in mid run tower. then smaller towers would be
used at outlaying terminals and on branch lines.
this rambling and all of ken's great info on tender and coal tower
capacities as well as other valuable comments hopefully might start
to answer your question.
btw, in a now abandoned research project i found that when a
railroad was building a line and were going to put a coaling tower in
a town, make it a coaling location or coaling stop as they would call
it in their newspapers, that was considered very good news to the
town.
warren
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