Filling up water on a tank engine

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I've just been wondering, as you do. With tank engines, when they are filled-up with water, are the two tanks (either side of the boiler) connected, so that when being watered from a column, only one of the side tanks needs to be filled?

[Steamport Southport]

Yes. There would be a balancing pipe between them. Also needed so that one side wasn't heavier than the other.

 

Some even had a connected tank in the bunker as well. Look at the LNWR Coal Tank for example.

 

 

 

Jason

[pH]

17 minutes ago, Steamport Southport said:

Some even had a connected tank in the bunker as well. Look at the LNWR Coal Tank for example.

I’ve always assumed that the horizontal thing immediately below the cab door on the LMS 2-6-4Ts (light-coloured in the picture below) was a pipe connecting side and bunker tanks. Was I right?

 

[Wickham Green too]

Even saddle tanks needed a balancing pipe as the injector on one side might get used more than t'other.

[Steamport Southport]

1 minute ago, pH said:

I’ve always assumed that the horizontal thing immediately below the cab door on the LMS 2-6-4Ts (light-coloured in the picture below) was a pipe connecting side and bunker tanks. Was I right?

 

 

Yes. That's them. GWR Prairie tanks had similar.

 

 

http://www.gwr.org.uk/no-prairies.html

 

 

One of those things that if you don't know they exist then you don't really notice them.

 

 

Jason

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Thanks guys; much appreciated.

[JimC]

The balance pipe is pretty obvious on GWR pannier tanks.

Trivia: the side tank to bunker tank balance pipe on a class of Barry Railway 0-6-4T was probably responsible for their early demise. They had a habit of derailing the trailing bogie on points which would break the balance pipe, at which point the fire would have to be thrown out. 

[Blandford1969]

They can be a real sod, if the column is turned on too quickly the one side comes up and then you have to wait for it to balance. The bigger tanks tend to have bigger balance pipes. You don't want to overfill though as the water cascading can end up in some of the oil trays which is never good and causes extra work the next time you come to prep.