Engine sheds with water tank over

[ejstubbs]

Both Wills and Bachmann do a single road engine shed with a water tank over the front door.  While not an aesthetic gem, this does look like a potentially useful space-saver if trying to fit all the gubbins required to keep locos fed and watered into a limited space.

 

My question is: with such a setup, would the loco have taken water directly from the tank, or would there also have been a separate water crane?

 

Also, could the tank over the shed have supplied a water crane a distance away eg on a platform as well?

[EddieB]

Obviously a more representative sample is needed, but the loco shed at Saffron Walden incorporated a water tank, which fed a separate water crane (there appears to have been insufficient space within the shed itself).  Another crane was located at the platform end.

[ejstubbs]

Thanks Eddie: it's always useful to know that there is/was at least one example of something that one is considering putting in one's model.

 

Thinking about it, whether the tank over the shed could supply a platform crane as well would partly depend on the geography of the site: if the shed was far enough downhill from the platform (probably no more than ~15ft lower, quite possibly less) then it wouldn't be able to provide enough head of water to supply the platform crane.

[TheSignalEngineer]

Not only limited single road small sheds. A nice example of other double use structures would be Tyseley where the tank was on top of the Coal Stage.

[LMS2968]

Tanks over the coal stage (or coal hole) were almost universal on the LNWR and L&YR.

[Ian Kirk]

Hi,

 

The 19th century roundhouse style shed at Burntisland had a tank over the entrance.  Most of the shed was burned down and never rebuilt so my memory of it is of one of the Burntisland harbour pilots (a J83) huddled under the archway. As a child I never understood why such an imposing structure had been built to house an old shunter.

 

Inverness too had a tank built on top of an imposing archway, intended to be the entrance into the roundhouse. Only about two thirds of the roundhouse was built so the entrance arch remained in splendid isolation.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[hmrspaul]

St. Albans MR had a fine two road structure with a tank over the far end. http://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/stalbansrailwayUnfortunately it was well passed steam days when I saw it, so no water cranes remained.

 

Paul

[bgman]

I realise it's not what you're looking for but here's a lovely preserved one which is more or less typical of early German water towers.

 

 

Needless to say, they were often separate from the shed !