Hello to all.
I am building a sand house for my modular layout, but I have a small incompréhension:la chain which connects the arm of food of sand with the upper reservoir, she is fixed or slides in the reservoir and how lowers the arm to feed the locomotive?
I do not know the exact terms of these parts if you can give them to me and explain me the functioning, you would provide to me a great service and I shall build less stupid.
Thank you for your explanations
J-G…I’m sure someone will have an answer for you soon. As to the rest, we’ve seen your work and I’m very sure you don’t have to worry about being less stupid! No no no.
Jean
Here is a close up of the sand tower at Chama New Mexico. Maybe this will help. It is narrow gauge D&RGW prototype but is typical of steam era sand house arrangement.
The flexible hose is fixed to the base of the reservoir and is simply manhandled over the sand dome for filling. While being held in place the cable is pulled opening a butterfly valve at the base of the reservoir funnel.
In this picture you can see the hose is attached at an angle above a short platform. This helps get it out over the top of the boiler. The bottom is tucked in so the locomotive can pass by without snagging it.
A slightly different angle of the tower.
Bonne chance, mon ami!
and how does the sand go up into that silo?
by bucket, or through that 3/4 (or is it an entire inch?) pipe??
Korm the sand must be dry so that it flows freely, I believe it is blown up to the silo with hot air. They have drying bins, but clumps need to be broken up. If it can flow up, then down should be a cinch.
John
oh… so sanding is some kind of high tec?
does anybody know, since when they used sanding?
Since like the early days of railroading.
Sand is brought in and dumped in the outside bin. By truck in this case but larger facilities used a raised track for side or drop bottom gondolas. Conveyor belts were also used and still are. The sand would be stored here until needed since only a small amount could be processed at a time.
Wet sand was shoveled into the drying house by a window at the end facing the outside bin. It would sit inside, drying in a pile until processing. Moisture inside the house escaped through the large roof vents. There are two on the Chama sand house. To get it completly dry it would be roasted over a stove.
The small pipe is for the stove. This would be a typical cast iron stove using wood or more commonly coal (larger facilities would use oil or natural gas. A screen or sheet metal bin surrounded the top half of the stove. Sand would be poured or shoveled in through the top. As the sand dried it fell to the ground or into a chute where it was collected in a bucket. The dry sand was then placed in a bin ready for use.
Since dry sand will flow much like water all that is needed to get into the outside overhead bin for loading was air pressure. In most cases this was supplied by the locomotive through an air hose that connected to a reservoir in or near the sand house. This can be seen on the left next to the tower in the pics above. Air pressure (actually vacuum caused by the fast moving air) would carry the sand up the small pipe running to the top of the bin. From there gravity would do the rest. Once electricity came to the third world nation of New Mexico electric compressors were used. I am not sure what is used on the Cumbres and Toltec today but this was how it was done old school.
Korm "
oh… so sanding is some kind of high tec?
does anybody know, since when they used sanding?
"
The Dewitt-Clinton carried a bucket of sand for traction when it entered service in 1831.
There you go J-G…I knew the boys would come through for you. I’ll never reach your modelling skills, but now I feel less stupid! I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Vive la France!
Boomer - your description of the sand house operation is excellent. I’m also building a sand house and plan to include sound and animation. I was hoping you could provide a little more detail about getting the sand up to the hopper at the top of the tower. Do you know if this was done with straight air pressure (70 - 90 psi?) or was there additional help from something like a cyclone separator? Either way, would the air be released at the top of the tower? I’m trying to figure out what kind of sounds would be involved in this operation.
Tom