I've been reading some steam history books lately, and noticed more than a few railroads seemed to regularly use "water cars". These basically look like tenders but with no coal bunker. I've seen a few on recent steam excursions, but never thought they were that common in the steam era. The pictures I've been looking at seem to suggest that's wrong, and that they were reasonably common, particularly on branch lines. I can't think of any N scale water cars being made in the time I've been doing N scale. Has any manufacturer ever made these? Have any of you kitbashed them?
Here are a couple I scratch built in On30: Don't know if they will help in N or not, but the idea is simple
Norfolk & Western used them with long distance coal and general merchandise trains. I have O. Winston Link's book, The Last Steam Railroad In America, and most of the photos show an auxiliary tank behind the tenders on both A and Y Class articulated locos. The tanks look similar to the tanks the UP runs behind 844 and 3985, except they are painted black.
They are very common on excursions these days because all the steam era watering holes have gone. They may also have been more common near the end of steam as intermediate watering places were perhaps abandoned with the reduction in use - but that is pure speculation I certainly wouldn't say they were common in the steam era, and I wouldn't model one unless it was generally used in my prototype, eg. like hytec suggests.
The use of auxiliary water bottles by the N&W may have been an economic decision. It's possible that maintaining a fleet of bottles was less expensive than maintaining a series of pumping stations and tanks, expecially within the Appalachian Mountains, and along the many lengthy and rugged spurs that served the coal mines throughout the region....just a guess, mind you. :tb-wacky:
I have seen multiple justifications for water cars in recent literature, and all make sense. In some parts of the country water was hard to come by. Remember, much of this is pre-rual electrification, so streams and rain water were the main ways to fill tanks far away from major cities. Depending on the time of the year, these sources may have been unreliable, and of course running out of water is a big deal so it made sense to carry extra. In some cases it was due to tender design. Perhaps they were originally coal tenders, but then converted to oil. The ratio of oil/water is now "wrong" for them to run out at the same time, adding water made operational sense. In some cases it appears to be for "hotshot" freights. By adding a water car they could safely cut water stops in half on some parts of the line which could greatly reduce the total trip time. Maintenance may have dictated; if a water tank was damaged or needed major overhaul it may have been taken out of service. On lines with sparse water tanks a water car may have been the solution. What I find most interesting about them is they all look like tenders. I suspect many are converted tenders. Yet, we know round tanks work better, the main reason vanderbuilt tenders weren't used more is they were patented. Tank cars are always round. Why didn't anyone use regular old tank cars filled with water?
Interesting point. Curved surfaces are better for containing pressure, but a square shape will give a greater volume for given loading gauge restrictions (simply because you can 'fill-in the corners'). So that would be a reason for having squarish tenders. In that case why not have square tank cars? Well, I'd think that many or most tank cars need to be sealed to prevent volatiles escaping (for oils, etc.) or contaminants entering (foodstuffs), so they could become pressurised with temperature changes. Whereas a water tender can be open to atmosphere. But that must still leave a number of liquid carriers that are not pressurised, but still cylindrical. Puzzling ...
IC 4-8-2s were quite well-known for using auxiliary tenders. The original tenders were short, with very limited water capacity. I know CN used auxiliary tenders behind small steam on some branchlines.
In this part of the world we call them water gins. Steam era cars were basically a rectangular tank mounted on a flatcar underframe though later ones had rounded ends, supposedly to match the tanks of Beyer-Garratts. As well as extra water for steam locos another use, that continued into the diesel era and to this day in some areas, was to supply water to section gangs at isolated locations, on most lines the local freight, at least one day a week, had a gin behind the engine and stopped at gangs camps along the way to fill their trackside water tanks. During a purge of older rolling stock a few years ago new water gins were built, this video I found on YouTube shows one on a steam excursion. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn_KX-LrTew"]YouTube - QR BB18 1/4 shunt[/ame]
To add another perspective on this discussion...one place that used a lot of water cars was logging railroads. In the steam days railroads were often the only means of supplying water to the steam powered logging equipment in the woods, and quite often water cars would also be used to supply domestic water to outlying log camps that did not have their own supply. In the early years these cars were mostly wooden boxes mounted on flatcars, but some real tank cars did see use in this service in the later years. As an example...through the years the McCloud River in northeastern California rostered well over 100 wood water cars, with a dozen or so steel tanks carried into the final years of rail logging. Water cars also served as fire suppression. Throw a pump, a hose reel, and a tool box on a car and you've got a fire car. It should also be noted that Class 1 carriers had their own versions of these cars. In the diesel era, many logging railroads purchased or built water cars to go with their diesels...both as fire cars and to wash accumulated sand off of the rails behind the locomotive. Many of these were either old steam locomotive tenders or built on tender frames. Jeff Moore Elko, NV
