How does a 1880’s sand drying house and tower work. You have a big bin of sand then a house that has some sort of drying stove or oven. Then how does the sand get from that up into the tower in 1880? did they use blowers?
Little tiny mice with little tiny buckets…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Durango’s drying stove. Generally compressed air was used to push the sand up into the tower, that is what the lines are you see coming out of the drying house roof into the top of the bin (bottom photo)
If I remember correctly when I was doing research on mine that some times the steam engines supplied air pressure to the sand house system to move the sand, but I’ll have to find my notes and that will be a project all in it’s own.
One thing that would be an issue using steam is that the sand would get wet, dry air is a necessary. lots of manual labor here, somebody hat to shovel out of a gondola into the outside bin, then had to shovel or otherwise move inside and shovel into the screened area atop the stove. then as it dried it would in theory land on the floor, but more often than not it probably needed some help, the next step is unclear to me, but I suspect the Dry air was used to create a vacuum to suck the sand up into the hopper. when filling the sand dome from the hose I think it is strictly gravity feed, which can be problematic as well.
as you can see from Chris’s Photo’s the standard today is the 5 gal plastic pail. much easier to deal with than a temperamental delivery hose.
AL P.
The practice of hand sanding went on for a long time, in this case the Twin Seams Mining Company was still doing it when this picture was taken in 1959.
On the steam engines the sand is delivered to the tracks by air pressure that is produced by the engines air compressor and this would have been the same air that was connected to the sand house, I believe
Wait???
They had sand in 1880???
No way …not buying it!
Rooster ’ said:
Wait???
They had sand in 1880???
No way …not buying it!
You should know you’re old enough to have been around when sand and dirt were invented.
Devon Sinsley said:
Rooster ’ said:
Wait???
They had sand in 1880???
No way …not buying it!
You should know you’re old enough to have been around when sand and dirt were invented.
I confirmed with the wife that sand was indeed discovered prior to the late 1800’s. She said she didn’t remember the exact year but she did remember there was a lot of media coverage when it happened and she thinks she was in her early teens (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Boy, I hope she doesn’t read this (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
Dan Hilyer said:
Devon Sinsley said:
Rooster ’ said:
Wait???
They had sand in 1880???
No way …not buying it!
You should know you’re old enough to have been around when sand and dirt were invented.
I confirmed with the wife that sand was indeed discovered prior to the late 1800’s. She said she didn’t remember the exact year but she did remember there was a lot of media coverage when it happened and she thinks she was in her early teens (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Boy, I hope she doesn’t read this (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
So you are saying that the wife is older than sand ?
Rooster ’ said:
Dan Hilyer said:
Devon Sinsley said:
Rooster ’ said:
Wait???
They had sand in 1880???
No way …not buying it!
You should know you’re old enough to have been around when sand and dirt were invented.
I confirmed with the wife that sand was indeed discovered prior to the late 1800’s. She said she didn’t remember the exact year but she did remember there was a lot of media coverage when it happened and she thinks she was in her early teens (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)
Boy, I hope she doesn’t read this (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-sealed.gif)
So you are saying that the wife is older than sand ?
“Bu … bu… bu…but Honey, I swear someone hijacked my account. You know I would never do that” (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-embarassed.gif)
Chris’s third photo, the one of the outside tower, is Chama’s tower, not Durango’s.
In Chama, when we use the sand tower to fill the sand dome on 315, two means are available.
Sand gets to the C&TS two ways, 1- 50 lb bags, kept in the sand house, Grab one throw it on the deck (repeat as necessary), climb up and throw them up on the boiler. climb up on the boiler, open sand dome lid, and hoist the bag up, cut open, fill dome (repeat) Take empty sand bag, and add BTU’s to the fire. At Antonito all sanding is done manually.
Sand does get to the sand house in about 3ft around bags of bulk sand. It is fed into the dryer, and then compressed air is used to send it up to the outside overhead tank. Most of the time compressed “Shop Air” is used to send it up.
In Chama at the sanding tower, there is an air hose that can be attached to the Engines Brake line air hose, thats located at the front coupler, to provide compressed air to run the sand feed system. This air is compressed and fed from the compressors.
Dave
Dave,
I am following all this and one final detail is eluding me. I get the sand bin and dryer and that dry sand falls on the floor. Then you say the shop air or loco air pushed the sand up to the tower/tank. This must be done by some sort of a venture feed system? Do they shovel the dry sand off the floor and dump it in some sort of hopper that then is fed by the air and sucks the sand out of the bin and up into he tower?
Yup… think , a lot like a bottom feed sand blaster…