Stormin Mormon wrote:

Interesting information. Most of the fire trucks near me, I
think are 750 GPM or 1,000 GPM. At least, back when I was
interested in that field.

I'll admit to knowing more about railroads and steam locos than fire
engines. My statement on the time it takes a fire company to fill an
average sized steam tender was based on observations (many).

A quick look at Wiki reveals that (in the USA): "Class A hydrants are
1000-1499gpm, Class B hydrants are 500-999gpm, and Class C hydrants are
0-499gpm. A fire pumper can't deliver more water than the hydrant can
provide.

Steam loco rewatering usually takes place in some out-of-the-way
location, typically a small town. The fire engines responding are not
the big city pumping engines, but usually much smaller "volunteer"
department trucks. The capacity of nearby hydrants (the ultimate
limiting factor) is probably toward the low side those on the Wiki list.
There's also the issues of how far they have to run the supply hose to
get to the nearest hydrant, and the condition of the hydrant, etc.

Both PRR and AT&SF (and maybe a few others) had tenders that exceeded
24,000 gallon water capacity. Even at 1000 gpm (unlikely in the field),
it would still take 24 minutes to fill such a tender. A more typical
sized tender, say 15,000 gallons capacity, would take at least a
quarter-hour to fill at best. It would seem a half-hour would be more
typical under real-world conditions, which is about what I have observed.

Anyway, my point was that it usually takes much longer to fill a steam
tender today than it did when proper RR watering facilities were
commonplace.

Dan Mitchell
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