I believe square water towers were used mostly in climates where the tower needed to be heated to prevent freezing. Where there round tanks inside the square enclosures? What type of heating source was used? I know most of them seemed to have coal piles or bins located nearby. Any info would be appreciated.

Boyd

bowens@rypn.org

Where there
> round tanks inside the square enclosures?

In the case of East Broad Top's well-known square tankhoues, yes--the actual tank inside the tankhouse was round.

> What type of heating source was used? I know
> most of them seemed to have coal piles or
> bins located nearby. Any info would be
> appreciated.

I don't think EBT's were heated; I think the tank housing provided passive insulation. Hope someone will correct my if I'm wrong...

> Boyd


eledbetter@rypn.org

Many of the water towers on the logging lines off the Sumpter Valley were square with the tanks inside. I don't think any were heated, but most had frost boxes, or fully enclosed bases.

Thanks, Taylor

thrush@smt-net.com

> Many of the water towers on the logging
> lines off the Sumpter Valley were square
> with the tanks inside. I don't think any
> were heated, but most had frost boxes, or
> fully enclosed bases.

> Thanks, Taylor
I have wondered if any of these had a stove inside for extremely cold weather. The tank base that remains on the Baker White Pine logging line on Dean Crk. is fairly intact as I recall. We need to go take a look for a stove pipe hole sometime. In the case of this tank and probably a lot of others in mountainous country, they were fed from a spring or creek, so that there was normally a small flow of water through the tank out an overflow all the time, which with the tank house around the actual tank, may have kept them from freezing most of the time. It seems to me there is a bunch of wood shavings spilling out of the side of the one I mention above, so it may have had an insulated base.


http://www.svry.com
jamesbane@hotmail.com

> I have wondered if any of these had a stove
> inside for extremely cold weather.

In the back of Robert Jones' "Two Feet Between the Rails," there is a reminicence by Verne Huntinton of the Sandy River on page 403 titled, "A Bad Time for Water Tanks." As a section man on the SR&RL the next section over water tank burned because of the stove and joshed his neighbor section man that he let it burn so he wouldn't have to tend the stove. A couple months later, his water tank burned for the same reason. He clearly talks about tending the fire in the stove inside the structure in fact he names it as a "Red Cloud" stove. All the pictures show the typical square wooden water tower.

Ed

ff1044@aol.com

While square tanks may have been for frost protection in some cases, they were also common on early (1860's/1870's) California lines including the Central Pacific, Southern Pacific and Western Pacific (the first one, chartered in 1862, not the later 1905 version known for the Zephir)

Clearly these tanks didn't need frost protection, and the early CP etc was not known for extra cost options. I suspect that they were there to protect the tanks from weather. The CP/WP also enclosed most of their large wooden bridges. The WP in Niles Canyon had at least three large covered bridges, one of which was 488' long.

The Virginia & Truckee and North Pacific Coast also had square tanks.

Randy Hees

http://sppcrr.org
hees@iix.netcom.com

A friend who works on the EBT tells me their towers were heated by potbelly stoves...

eledbetter@rypn.org

> A friend who works on the EBT tells me their
> towers were heated by potbelly stoves...

More specifically, they were apparently coal stoves with water circulation. They were plumbed into the water tank. I'd speculate that the circulation of the water was by convection.

The East Broad Top Railroad Homepage

ebtrr@spikesys.com

I took this photo in August 1988 of a square water tank built by the Denver and Salt Lake (?) that was used during the construction of their line over the Continental Divide at Rollins Pass. The route was abandoned when the Moffat Tunnel was completed.

I also have a fish-eye photo taken inside the doorway of the lower part of the structure. It shows the heavy timbers but no details of heating or plumbing.

I don't know what the current status of this structure is, whether it is still standing, or not.


brianf425@yahoo.com