Water stops

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Tue Oct 30 17:49:44 EDT 2018


Mike,

Me too, that is why I originally asked the question.  Remember, after
coming to a complete stop, the brakeman would have to turn the valve (?
terminology) on the car immediately behind the locomotive to keep air in
the line; then the locomotive would uncouple from the train and move into
place at the water plug.  The brakeman would have to climb up on the tender
and open the water fill hatch; then position the water spout over the
tender.  I'm not certain about the mechanism to operate the water spout,
but I presume there was some type of lock so no vandals or ambitious
railfans could discharge water improperly.  The spouts were of large
diameter so I imagine the water discharged at a fast rate, perhaps only
taking a few minutes to reach capacity; then the entire process was
reversed from securing the discharge pipe, closing the water hatch and
climbing down from the tender.  I would imagine a similar procedure was
followed for coal loading.  The locomotive then needed to back to the train
and couple up, with the air hoses connected, etc.

Since most sound decoders today have a water fill routine available, I have
been programming this into my steam loco decoders (there is no coal fill
that I am aware of); I also use the ash dump feature for locos returning
the roundhouse and before going on the turntable.  All interesting
operational aspects.

Jim Brewer

On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 5:04 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> I'm curious as to how long on average was a coal and water stop for a
> mainline locomotive? 15 minutes?
>
> Mike Weeks
> Seattle
>
> On Tue, Oct 30, 2018 at 9:59 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Jim,
>> One of Bud Swearer's recordings is of a train stopping at Villamont for
>> water and I don't think that they uncoupled from the train.
>>
>> Jimmy Lisle
>>
>> *Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID*
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