I know the New York Central made use of water scoops and track pans to supply water to steam engines and reduce water stops. Did any other railroads use this system to cut down on water stops?
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The Pennsylvania did. Pennsy track pans.
Rusty
In video on YouTube I watched recently, John M. Prophett III, narrating to friend while some of his 16mm movies are playing, says some of the scenes are along the New Jersey Central and the Reading (in addition to the NYC and PRR already mentioned). The Reading and PRR scenes in the movies were along electrified lines.
David
The Jersey Central and Reading Company track pans were mainly used by the B&O on its long-distance, steam powered trains. B&O steam passenger power assigned out of Jersey City had tenders fitted with water scoops. In 1946 B&O re-equipped six of its P-7c steam locomotives to Class P-7e with large, welded 20,000- gallon capacity water tanks, 25 tons of coal and riding on 6-wheel trucks like the EM-1 tenders. That enabled a complete run from Jersey City to DC with no need of scooping (or stopping) for water or making fuel stops. By 1949, B&O was using diesel power exclusively on tis passenger trains out of Jersey City and the track pans were removed. The six P-7e class members were reassigned to run DC west and out of Cincinnati until their retirement and scrapping in the 1950's.
S. Islander
Yes, a number of railroads did use them. The Pennsy Museum in Strasburg has some actual track plan parts on display in there with the route on which they were in. There are a few videos on YouTube that talk about them in detail. One of the videos talked about how a flag system was used to guide when to "drop" the scoop into the pan. There were 3 sets of flags, first to indicate when to drop, second was a halfway marker, and the third to pick the scoop back up.
I think one of the New York Central videos talked about how the coaches behind the tender(directly) were told to keep the windows closed. This was because the excess spray would soak the coaches and naturally drench passengers if the windows were open.
One of the other things that were used in the flag system was a warning in colder months not to drop the scoop because the pans were completely frozen over. This did happen from time to time from what I read even though there was a boiler house to heat the water. I believe that all the necessary things like filtration as well as a spout we're on site as well. I think there is a picture from one of the railroads near the Midwest showing pans on the mainline and a spout/water tower on the siding.
There is a book on the Pennsylvania Railroad that Ryan Kunkle suggested to me a few years ago that is in a series of books on the railroad. That book is Triumph I, Altoona to Pitcairn 1846-1996. It lightly covers some bits on pans in a chapter or two but only a bit.
If you look up "Track pans" on Google, there should be a PDF from The Headlight(NYCHS) webzine that has a bit more information on pans with pictures and diagrams. I think there is also a design in it. Sort of bin a while since I looked at it, years in fact.
On FB, one of the groups I below to actually had a club that modeled the NYC's pans with the flags. The length is not to scale as it would need to cover quite a bit of footage. I had done up a small design in AnyRail which would cover almost 9 feet, pans taking up about 6 foot of that. Actual real footage of pans varied, between 1350-1800 feet, but may have to fact check that. Can't quite remember, but knew there was a small end number and a big number.
@NKP Muncie posted:In video on YouTube I watched recently, John M. Prophett III, narrating to friend while some of his 16mm movies are playing, says some of the scenes are along the New Jersey Central and the Reading (in addition to the NYC and PRR already mentioned). The Reading and PRR scenes in the movies were along electrified lines.
David
I also watch the video a couple of times it was posted on this forum and in the video John talks to how long the water troughs were and I believe he said the Pennsy were between 12 and 1500 feet. He also stated how the PRR and NYC used different calls for Theo fireman to lower or raise the scope. It is a great video.
Joe,
I've been reading about the New York & New England Railroad which, in combination with the New Haven Railroad, ran the New England Limited, later known as the White Train, on a daily six-hour schedule in both directions between Boston and New York in the 1880s and '90s. The NY&NE train ran 86 miles nonstop from Boston to Willimantic, Connecticut where the cars were handed over to the NYNH&H which took the train from there to New York. According to "Connecticut Railroads ... An Illustrated History" by G.M. Turner and M.W. Jacobus, the train was able to make the 213-mile trip in six hours because there were track pans at Putnam, Connecticut, so it did not have to stop for boiler water until Willimantic. The track pans were fifteen-hundred feet in length, twenty-eight inches wide, seven inches deep, and the tender scooped twenty-five-hundred gallons of water in about thirty seconds at a speed of forty-five miles per hour. Steam pipes in the trough prevented freeze-ups in Winter. The NY&NE track pans may have been the first in America, having been introduced in England in 1859 by John Ramsbottom on the London & North Western Railway. The L&NWR track pans predated those of the New York Central's Empire State Express by about twenty-five years.
MELGAR
Mel, you always seem to astound me with what you find. Excellent reporting on this.
Wow this was an interesting thread. It amazes me that the scoop actually worked, I kind of wonder how much maintenance was required on the scooping tenders, especially the scoop itself, from stress and strain when it hit the water moving at speed (would be kind of like a water brake). To be able to gather 2500 gallons in 30 seconds is pretty impressive to me. I also wonder how much water was wasted by doing that, kind of wonder if as much went flying as went into the tender
. It seems pretty obvious to me this would only work in places with a consistent water supply with temperate temps, I doubt anyone would use such a thing in the southwest or other hot, arid areas, I would think you would lose too much to evaporation and water was a pretty rare thing there to waste it scooping it like this.
@MELGAR posted:Dave,
There is much historical information to be found, especially about railroads.
There are pictures of trains scooping water at both locations that I mentioned - Rowayton, CT and Putnam, CT. Search on "New Haven Railroad track pans Rowayton, CT" and "New Haven Railroad track pans Putnam, CT" to see pictures...
MELGAR
Thanks Mel, I'll definitely have to look those up.
@bigkid posted:Wow this was an interesting thread. It amazes me that the scoop actually worked, I kind of wonder how much maintenance was required on the scooping tenders, especially the scoop itself, from stress and strain when it hit the water moving at speed (would be kind of like a water brake). To be able to gather 2500 gallons in 30 seconds is pretty impressive to me. I also wonder how much water was wasted by doing that, kind of wonder if as much went flying as went into the tender
I think at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania there is a picture of a broken scoop. Apparently it was not lifted up in time and had hit the end section on the pans bending it substantially. One of the fixes for this though not entirely fool proof was some sort of guide IIRC to keep that from happening. Of course though with improvements overall for the railroads and diesel's coming up, pans got scrapped.
If you haven't seen a PT tender taking on water(or the models of the Niagara's), you haven't seen the "jets" that were installed to prevent the water tanks from bursting the rivets. I think Ryan Kunkle had explained this a few times either in the promo for the VL Niagara or in person. There are a few videos of the real deal taking on water at speed, search on YouTube, "New York Central Niagara" and there should be two(or three) videos that come up. I think the better one is somewhere around 25-30 minutes long. I think it starts out talking about the way the Niagara's were built and goes into a few other details before they show them in motion.
You could also look up one of the oldest videos of taking on water, I believe it is the 999 for the New York Central shot by Edison if I'm not mistaken. It is a pretty good film, short though, maybe 3-5 minutes long. It is pretty interesting too.
I don't know if that's one of the videos I was talking about that is on FB. I have a record of it in my sent box, but I would imagine I can't pop that here because I didn't take the film of it. Regardless, this is pretty good too.
Remember, the pans actually sat higher than the rails, not below them. I think there is a picture of the British Railway that shows this very good, but that is across the pond and not sure what the exact differences would be about pan to track height.
I did some digging, I had never read anything about using scoops to get water. One thing I learned from another site was that they put the pans 40 or 50 miles apart, given that the 2500 gallons wouldn't last long (typical tenders, according to what I read, were anywhere from 10 to 25k gallons). Then I found this article that was kind of neat, about how the NYC did testing to improve how the scoop worked: https://nycshs.files.wordpress...5/11/waterscoops.pdf
One of the things was the common complaint that passing train passengers when the scoop was being used could literally end up getting soaked through the window. They also talk about more grisly things, like a hobo on one train ending up getting drenched and was frozen in place (in winter) and someone else even less fortunate. It did mention, as I surmised, that even with the modified design it wasted like 6000 gallons of water for the amount it scooped up.
Hmm, wonder if the folks at Lionel in the "Vision Series" could come up a way to simulate 'fake water' (white smoke might do it, if you look at one of the pictures of water being expelled from overflow tubes on the modified tender). In the article it says they tested the modified design at 80mph, would love to see the film of that one, must have been spectacular to see (It sounds like they left the speed restriction at 45mph in normal use).
The other interesting points (to me) is that the scoop could be lowered down before the train reached the trough and would be raised after it had passed the trough, that the way the pans and track were set up the scoop would not hit the track ties/ground, so it didn't need to be dropped when over the trough (which would have been difficult to impossible and very inefficient). The last point I read was that a following train that was close wouldn't be able to use the pan, it took a while to refill, which makes sense.
@bigkid posted:I did some digging, I had never read anything about using scoops to get water. One thing I learned from another site was that they put the pans 40 or 50 miles apart, given that the 2500 gallons wouldn't last long (typical tenders, according to what I read, were anywhere from 10 to 25k gallons). Then I found this article that was kind of neat, about how the NYC did testing to improve how the scoop worked: https://nycshs.files.wordpress...5/11/waterscoops.pdf
One of the things was the common complaint that passing train passengers when the scoop was being used could literally end up getting soaked through the window. They also talk about more grisly things, like a hobo on one train ending up getting drenched and was frozen in place (in winter) and someone else even less fortunate. It did mention, as I surmised, that even with the modified design it wasted like 6000 gallons of water for the amount it scooped up.
Hmm, wonder if the folks at Lionel in the "Vision Series" could come up a way to simulate 'fake water' (white smoke might do it, if you look at one of the pictures of water being expelled from overflow tubes on the modified tender). In the article it says they tested the modified design at 80mph, would love to see the film of that one, must have been spectacular to see (It sounds like they left the speed restriction at 45mph in normal use).
The other interesting points (to me) is that the scoop could be lowered down before the train reached the trough and would be raised after it had passed the trough, that the way the pans and track were set up the scoop would not hit the track ties/ground, so it didn't need to be dropped when over the trough (which would have been difficult to impossible and very inefficient). The last point I read was that a following train that was close wouldn't be able to use the pan, it took a while to refill, which makes sense.
Yup, that is the very article from the Headlight I had alluded to way up above. There is another article out there which mainly talks about the British Railway and their track pans, though I'm not sure what resource I got that off of. It is I think about 10-12 pages long, has some design schematics as well as a host of pictures to go along with the parts of the article. I downloaded that about the same time I had found the Headlight one.
Others here mentioned the need/means for heating the water in cold weather. Growing up in the 60s in Bristol PA less than a mile from the Northeast Corridor, I always thought it odd that arched opening of a concrete bridge that carried the PRR over Mill Creek was sheathed in wood. Over the decades the wood covering over each side slowly disappeared to reveal a framework. (Not the kind of framework that was used to initially build the arch.) Twenty or so years ago I saw an old map or railroad plan of that area that noted a heater (or it may have said stove) under the bridge at the location. I assumed then it must have been a location for track pans. It is elevated through Bristol but the elevated level section seems long enough. In this Google maps photo you can barely see some of the wood inner framework left, but in the 60s it was entirely covered on each side, I guess to somewhat shelter the workers who tended the stove, and pump, I would suppose. Only a guess, but it would fit.
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I know that initially flags were used until they went to a lighted signal I believe, correct?
Whats old is new
The old tender water scoop is similarly used today by water bombers.
the Canadair CL-415 Water Bomber picks up 13536 pounds = 1692 gallons of water thru belly scoops.
I have watched them skim the water and pick up full loads of water in 11 seconds at probably 100 knots.
This is pretty close to the old railroad water pan time and speeds.
Water was coming out of vents under the wings during pickup. Now I know the why the vents.under the wings. This would be similar to the vents on the railroad tenders to prevent water pressure from blowing rivets with high pressure water during track pickups.
Now all we need is a steam powered water bomber and we are back to the 1920s.
@hclark6345 posted:Whats old is new
The old tender water scoop is similarly used today by water bombers.
the Canadair CL-415 Water Bomber picks up 13536 pounds = 1692 gallons of water thru belly scoops.
I have watched them skim the water and pick up full loads of water in 11 seconds at probably 100 knots.
This is pretty close to the old railroad water pan time and speeds.
Water was coming out of vents under the wings during pickup. Now I know the why the vents.under the wings. This would be similar to the vents on the railroad tenders to prevent water pressure from blowing rivets with high pressure water during track pickups.
Now all we need is a steam powered water bomber and we are back to the 1920s.
Yeah, you don't want the tender to burst. Pretty interesting addition you've added.
Id imagine it was pretty important to install track pans on track that was exactly level, like in "water level route".
Has anyone attempted to model the track pans or flag system on their layouts??
@LT1Poncho posted:Has anyone attempted to model the track pans or flag system on their layouts??
Go over to the photo albums topic or look up "modeling track pans and water scoops". There's a topic over there that had stuff here yesterday that got moved.
Over here is the topic about modeling track pans and water scoops, Modeling Track Pans and Water Scoops
I'm not sure if there is an issue with some of the pictures over there as they were moved from over here. If you can't see them, maybe the original posters will need to re-add them.
I edited my post above about the footage of the track pans. I accessed my email I had sent out and it states in that email from my research 1350 feet to 1800 feet.
Also some further information via a conversation I had had which was also in the email.
"Well, today I went over(Saturday) to my local train store, Trains & Things in Ewing New Jersey to chat with Tony the owner. The week prior he said he would ask someone who knew everything that there is to know about anything railroad related, and I believe that it is none other than Bob Bartizek who had posted the file on track pans above. Tony had told me that what Bob had said was that during the winter month(or extreme cold) that there was a system in place that if it was too cold to pick up water, there would be a signal. He said as well that they used steam pipes to heat the water to keep it from freezing. I had told him the week before that I read they used old boilers to heat the water."
The topic Bob had posted on can be found here, Bob Bartizek's reply on Pennsylvania Track Pans for water pick up? Bob posted a link to a PDF as well concerning the Pennsy's pans.
Over on YouTube there is this video NYC Water Level Route in which at 0:50 seconds there is a Hudson(I believe) taking water at speed. There are a couple of good shots from there up to the 2 minute mark of the "jets" on the tender. Around the 9 minute mark there is a Niagara taking on water at speed in which you just see a little bit of spray coming from the tender before it gets out of view of the camera.
In this video, New York Central - The Steam Locomotive, you have to wait until around 16:30-16:50 to actually see the water scoop followed by a Dreyfuss Hudson taking water at speed. It is pretty cool because in almost all the videos I have seen, this is the only one that shows the water scoop working while the locomotive is standing still.
Over here this video New York Central 999 Steam Locomotive & The Empire State Express has a still photo at 1:15 of the 999 taking on water at speed. Not sure if the picture is from the 1893 run or not as no way to verify.
Over here, this is an Atlantic 4-4-2 running the Empire State Express in 1905 Empire State Express 1905. The entire video all 58 seconds is just of the Atlantic taking on water. You can see an engine smoking in the background by a water tower on the sidings.
Sorry if this is a lot to look at, but I figure it is good stuff to see the light of day again. I have probably watched most of these at least 10 times or better over the past 5-6 years, some maybe even more so because of the amount of steam engines running in these videos. Enjoy.
Unfortunately that .pdf link from 2013 no longer points to the document.
At least for me.
@PRR Man posted:Unfortunately that .pdf link from 2013 no longer points to the document.
At least for me.
I got the same just now as well. I will have to see if I downloaded it a few years ago. Worse comes to worse, we can always ask Bob as he is one heck of an expert on the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Okay, getting back to some more information on track pans and water scoops, I have a file that I downloaded some time ago, and I found it out on the web as well which I guess can be downloaded(definitely viewed though).
Scooping Water In the Age of Steam PDF This is the link that Bob Bartizek's link should have gone to.
Also there is this one that I also downloaded some time ago. This is on the B&O and starts off with track pans but goes into some other stuff as well in the rest of the PDF.
Track Pans & the B&O Royal Blue Line
There is one other that I can't seem to find on my laptop nor on the web which relates to steam engines in the UK. If you do a search for "water trough for steam engines in Britain", there are quite a number of pictures from the age of steam(both US and UK pictures). It should be easy to tell which is which as long as there is an engine in the picture. There are some shots of pans/troughs by themselves which make it hard, but I think that most or some of the photos have watermarks or stamps(or written on) as to where in the world it is. There are some great color pictures to be seen on there as well.
The PRR and NYC, not surprisingly, called these water installations by different names. PRR Employee Timetables refer to them as "Track Troughs" while the NYC ETTs call them "Track Pans".
New York Central raised the scooping speed to 80 MPH after tenders were modified with overflow vents. Speed limit reduced to 60 if another train was on an adjacent track over the pans.
It appears that the Pennsylvania retained the 50 MPH scooping speed until the end.
I just happen to find an interesting video last night quite by accident. There is a lot to watch in the video, but of course, there is what this topic is all about in there as well. I just posted over here The 16mm Railroad Movies of John M. Prophet III(Trains of PRR & NYC Mostly) hop over to "52:39 - Track pans & water scooping" to watch some impressive video of both New York Central & Pennsylvania trains doing some water scooping.
