mike wrote:
On May 7, 8:52 am, danmitch wrote:

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.


NYC and the PRR (and others)had water filled trenches between the
rails on the important Mainlines,with a remote control scoop on the
Tender, allowing refills on the go back in the heyday of Steam.

http://books.google.com/books?id=mELYxgFA8AYC&pg=PA54

**
mike
**

Which I described in a "snipped" paragraph following the one you quoted.

I don't know how "remotely controlled" you could consider the scoops ...
they were actuated by an air-piston controlled by the fireman on the
locomotive. IIRC, they were held up by springs, and forced down by air.

The fireman lowered the scoop when the tender passed over the leading
end of the track-pan, and raised it when the tender was either full, or
the tender neared the end of the pan. Signs alongside the track marked
the appropriate locations. The scoops were designed to break away if not
raised in time, but that would still be a highly UN-desirable situation
that might lead to a train derailment. At best, the boss would NOT be
pleased!

Typical pick-up speed was around 40 mph. Attempting to scoop water at
much higher speeds could damage the tender.

Once the tender was full, the typical result was the tender water-hatch
flying open (they were hinged), and a guyser of water erupting from the
top of the tender.

see also: http://www.jimquest.com/writ/trains/pans/scoop4.htm, which
includes a good picture of an "overflow", and several photos of the pans.

NYC had some tenders with several large curved overflow pipes spaced
along the outside-top edges of their tender tanks. With these, a full
tender resulted in multiple firehose-like streams of water squirting
outward and downward alongside tender.

The scoop alone produced a huge "bow wave" as it rammed through the
track-pan. This squirted outward from beneath the tender to a fair
distance to both sides. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_pan

Add the gush of water from the overflow, and it was a pretty impressive
event. It would NOT be good to be standing near the track when a loco
was taking water from a track-pan.

Dan Mitchell
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