Engine Terminal

[YellowHillsCentral]

I'm planning my engine terminal right now, and have some ideas of how I want it to look, but I wanted to come to you guys for help. What are the things that need to be included in a steam and diesel terminal? (narrow gauge of course  )

Thanks Again Guys
CSLM

[glennk28]

Steam locos need fuel, water, and sand, as well as miscellaneous other supplies.  Fuel--coal, wood, or oil--heeds a means of transferring it to the tender.  The big tower is not necessarily needed--some places used a front loader tractor, a crane, or a conveyor belt to get coal into the tender--or an elevated track parallel where men could shovel coal from a gondola to the tender.  Oil is easy--gravity does it, or a pump.  Wood needs a bunch of men.  Sand is usually handled from a raised tank. 

Diesels need fuel and sand.  Some water for cooling the engine. 

A means of turning the locos may be desired. 

[Tom Lapointe]

Here's a couple of photos of the one I'm building...







These were taken shortly after I had finished basic construction last year; some of it is "subject to change"   (I may be moving the location of the water tower for instance).  Ballasting is planned for this spring, soon as I can find a suitable source of crusher fines or decomposed granite.  I may also enlarge it a bit, as the stub tracks will currently hold only my SMALLEST  engines!
                                                                                                        Tom

[Charlie Mutschler]

A few added thoughts.  Coal burners should have an ash pit.  It is possible to dump the ashes on the ties, but not recommended - they tend to burn.  Sometimes, however, the simple solution was to put a sheet of corregated iron over the ties where ashes were dumped, but an ash pit with the rail supported on an I beam over the pit makes it much easier to get in and remove the ashes.  The D&SNG recently built a new concrete ash pit on the wye at Silverton to allow for more convenient fire cleaning there.  It is common to have a tool rack by the ash pit.  This holds the rakes, hoes, shovels and other fire cleaning equipment.  A good example is at the East Broad Top. 

Diesel oil flows easily and gravity will transfer that with no problems.  But in the steam days, the normal fuel for oil fired steam locomotives, steam ships, and stationary boilers was Bunker C, a heavy black oil that needs to be heated to pump and to atomize properly in the firebox.  So the oil unloading track usually had a steam line to it, allowing the heating coil on the tank car to be connected to it.  Once heated and free flowing, the fuel oil was pumped into a storage tank, and then pumped into locomotive tenders.  Some logging railroads simply pumped it out of the tank car into the locomotive tender. 

The sand house is an important feature for any place servicing a large number of locomotives.  Clean, dry, screened sand is used for traction when starting or stopping, especially on wet or frosty rail.  Inside the sand house is a big stove for drying sand.  Larger facilities would use air to blow the clean dry sand into a storage bin where gravity could carry it into locomotive sand domes. 

Happy building. 
Charlie Mutschler
-30-

[glennk28]

In a modern setting, sand might be obtained already washed, dried, and graded from an outside source.  For several years a club I belonged to was located at a sand plant.  SP had a bunch of short covered hoppers assigned to loco sand service that cycled in and out of the plant. McCloud River RR had a couple of distinctive carsfrom which I think the sand was delivered to the locos directly .  These cars were unloaded by a combination of gravity and compressed air, leaving just the direct sand supply tank to model