Diesel Fueling Station (transition era)

The towers are for sand. I cant get the picture to blow up big enough to see if there are fuel and water rigs, but I would guess that the structure between the sand towers are for fuel and water. I havent seen a kit of the entire service station, but numerous sand towers have been made. Fuel and water rigs are much harder to find. MTH makes some in the railking accessory line, but they're not the most detailed things. I dont know if anyone makes a really detailed diesel fuel filler in O.

Kevin....the tall structures are sanding towers.  It appears that the fueling and water structures are between the towers in you example.

 

Yes....a sanding tower just like you have pictured has been made in O scale....Overland did a very nice one and as a matter of fact, just a few days ago I posted pictures of one I just acquired from a friend who is a 2 rail scale modeler.  I painted it earlier this week and set it in a temporary position on the layout to take pictures. Below is one of the pictures I posted.  You can see more if you look under my recent threads....  As far as water and fueling rigs, MTH made them but they are not detailed like the sand tower below.

 

Alan

 

 

 

Diesel Fueling Tower made by Model Structures for Model Railroads. About $60 +S&H.

Dewey,

I have built a few diesel service facilities. I put a platform between the two sand towers that has some piping and hoses to fuel the engines. I have added vertical tanks to some of these for fuel, water and oil. I constructed one for Tony Lash and have seen pictures of it posed on this forum in the past by Mr. Parisi.

 

Alan Graziano

 I was going to build modern ones and played with some prototypes:

https://ogrforum.com/d...ent/2415514336498744

I don't know what was used in the transition era.

I think they some times used home heating oil type trucks to fuel diesels in the early days. They just drove up next to the engine and filled them up like a home oil tank. Kalmbach Books published "The Model Railroader's Guide to LOCOMOTIVE SERVICE TERMINALS" by Marty McGuirk that has good information on them too.

 

Both Lionel and K-Line built Diesel service accessories. The Lionel #6-14156 is a square one story building with a man that comes out to fill the engine. It has a fuel tower on it too. Works well but is toy like. The K-Line #122 Diesel Fueling Station has a shed and two men with hoses that move. Although it is cheap plastic and does not work very well, it looks representative enough.

 

There are also custom builders like Alan Graziano who will build them for you. I remember seeing several on one builder's web sight but do not recall which one.

 

You may want to do a search on www.walthers.com for HO deisel facilities for ideas.

 

Paul Goodness

Hello Alan,

That is a cool sand tower.  I have the weaver version.  I was hoping to figure out what equipment was used to fuel diesels, because I want to place it along side my sand tower.  I have seen pictures of F3s taking on fuel directly from tank cars at passenger stations, but I really want to learn what structures were built for diesel fueling at service terminals. 

Hi Kevin....

 

Thanks!  A week or so ago I had posted a thread on the update to my diesel service facility.  You may want to take a look at it.  I have a long way to go!!  Anyway, here is a pic of the fueling and water items that MTH made.  You can right click on the picture and then click on "open link in new window" to get a closer look...

 

Alan

Good point.  Here is a shot of the Mark Twain Zephyr being refueled that way:

 

 

That's a scene that I've never seen modeled.  

The one I am working on is based on a prototype from Boston, and includes a sand pit and drying house, pump house, fuel tank and fueling columns.  I have found a few kits from various suppliers for the different sections of an engine service facility which you can combine together into your own custom service area depending on space and configuration.

The way I have seen the sanding process is an area where sand is dumped from cars, a "drying house" to dry the sand and blow it through pipes up into a sanding tower like those you have shown.

Here is a photo of my prototype:

some great pics here and this one is cool.

 I remember the old Sinclair gas with the dino sign. Didn't know they serviced trains (and homes) too.

 

Kevin:

As detailed by Alan and others you can set up sanding towers with a fuel loading platform in between.

There are various ways to go - 

WRT sand towers you can opt for the type many manufacturers make that stand along side of track or you can opt for a scratched built designs that sit over the track two of which are shown below.

 

 

 

 

 

WRT fuel loading you can go with a fuel tower as Dewey showed or a platform rig with swivel piping as shown below.

 

 

 

 

Storage tanks like Alan builds can be piped to the platform fueling stands.

Joe...really like those structures!!

 

Here are a few pictures of the sand towers now placed in their permanent spots within the diesel facility...right click on a photo and then click on "open link in new window" for a full page view.

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used the MTH fuel column along with a lionel figure to create mine.

 

 

Alan:

You have a beautiful layout. the sand towers are probably the most detailed I have seen to date. I also think I noticed an old Lionel signal bridge in the 4th photo???

Joe

Thank you Joe!  The two smaller sand towers are the most recent Weaver brass models.  The larger one is an Overland brass model of a 10 ton dual track sand tower.

 

The signal bridge is a Bachmann/Plasticville original. 

 

Alan

Two photos of the diesel service facility on the Not-So-Great Eastern R.R. Off to the right is the cabin car storage track, and to the left is the sand tower and coal tower for the two steamers still in service. All pretty much scratch built.
jackson