CPR Water Tower (Enclosed)

[tetters]

Amazing work, especially the spout and roof.

But am I missing something? Why does the tower have windows and a smokejack? Does it have a water tank inside the building? Sorry, maybe a naive question, but then I don't know much about enclosed water towers - just familiar with the standard ones of a tank on top of a frame. Thanks.

No problem. Happy to answer your question. Canadian Pacific and even Canadian National enclosed their water tanks especially in colder regions of the country. On the inside is the standard type of water tank you'd commonly see track side. They just covered them with a house of sorts if you will. The smoke jack is for the boiler which sits under the water tower. The chimney for the smoke jack goes up through the tank and heats the water to keep it from freezing.

[BR60103]

Tetters:
the tank I grew up with (Perth) had a stone bottom half. Of course, everything in Perth was stone.
I've never seen a real one that was wood all the way.

[ngaugingnut]

Amazing work, especially the spout and roof.

But am I missing something? Why does the tower have windows and a smokejack? Does it have a water tank inside the building? Sorry, maybe a naive question, but then I don't know much about enclosed water towers - just familiar with the standard ones of a tank on top of a frame. Thanks.

No problem. Happy to answer your question. Canadian Pacific and even Canadian National enclosed their water tanks especially in colder regions of the country. On the inside is the standard type of water tank you'd commonly see track side. They just covered them with a house of sorts if you will. The smoke jack is for the boiler which sits under the water tower. The chimney for the smoke jack goes up through the tank and heats the water to keep it from freezing.

Thanks for the explanation, so the windows are just cosmetic?

[tetters]

Thanks for the explanation, so the windows are just cosmetic?

No problem. I would assume that the windows were there to allow some ambient light inside of the tower. Although not all towers had windows, some did, and I would guess that in some areas where towers were located, back then not every locale had a electricity for interior lighting.

[fast car]

Tetters,

Beautiful job on the water tower and spout section. What patience you have. It was definately worth all the work.

Larry

[Prairie Trains]

No problem. Happy to answer your question. Canadian Pacific and even Canadian National enclosed their water tanks especially in colder regions of the country. On the inside is the standard type of water tank you'd commonly see track side. They just covered them with a house of sorts if you will. The smoke jack is for the boiler which sits under the water tower. The chimney for the smoke jack goes up through the tank and heats the water to keep it from freezing.[/quote]

Thanks for the explanation, so the windows are just cosmetic?[/quote]

The windows where functional, as most of these water towers were built long before electricity. The upper windows light the walkways around the tank and the lower ones let in light to the timber work and stove below the tank. The walkways around the tank where about two and a half feet wide and where used to maintain and repair the tank, such as fix leaks and adjust the tie rods. The distance between the outer walls and tank allowed warm air to circulate in the winter to keep the water from freezing. The stove pipe ran up alongside of the tank, not through it. Because a leak in the pipe would put out the fire and endanger the tank of freezing, and the cold water around a stove pipe would keep it cold and soot and creosote would build up very fast and cut off the fires draft.

I used Kanamodels kits for my water tower but substituted other windows that were more C.N.R. appropriate. I also used a cardboard tube from an iced tea container as a tank inside so you could not see light from the window on the opposite side of the building.

[tetters]

Not to argue a point... but...

I can point you to schmatics which show the stove pipe running through the floor of the tub. The drawings outline the use of metal gaskets and clearly show the stack running straight up through the tank.

[ngaugingnut]

Thanks for the info on the windows and how the inside was constructed - makes sense now that I know there were walkways around the tank.

Amazing what we can learn in this hobby!

[Prairie Trains]

tetters I am sorry, I was not trying to start an argument. I have never seen plans for a water tower, I was only going by the four C.N.R. ones I have actually been in here in Saskatchewan. They all had stove pipes running up though gaps in the walkways, this may have been a change made sometime after construction. There are seven or eight still in existence out here, they used to supply water to many community's along the railways so they were never torn down after the end of steam. Most of these have now been decommissioned but have been preserved. I know of only one still in service. There are several foundations still around but the water towers are long gone, they are concrete and are twelve to twenty four inches high depending on the level of the ground.

I like your model, it looks great.

[teejay]

Nice work ...I think you hit a homerun on this project .

Terry

[tetters]

Thanks guys. Teejay, any chance the homerun comment has anything to do with the baseball stadium you are helping with? LOL!!!

...and PT don't worry about it. It's all good.

[tetters]

Finally got back to work on this after a bit of a hiatus.

Added the concrete (strip wood) foundation, got some plastic beads for the mast details and because the doors had climbed a few feet off the ground, I decided I needed some cast (some stacked 0.60 Styrene) concrete steps to make it easier for the little plastic people to get inside.






I still have to paint the mast. I think I'll do a copper color and then weather it green to give it that look we see when copper is exposed to the sun. Once that final touch up is completed I'll weather it all with some powders, install the window glaze and call this one finished.

[Steamtrains]

That turned out really GREAT..!!

What are the beads for..?? Insulators of sorts..?? :oops:

[tetters]

That turned out really GREAT..!!

What are the beads for..?? Insulators of sorts..?? :oops:

Thanks!

...and...

Nope. The large bead or ball at the center is supported by the two rods which on the prototype would move the ball up or down depending on the water level in the tank. So, when viewed from the outside the ball indicated the depth of the water for the train crews as they approached it. The ball at the top is decorative for lack of a better term.

Cautiously optimistic, as you can see my tank is about half full as opposed to half empty.

[secondhandmodeler]

I'm new to this forum but am quickly seeing a pattern here. I click on a thread, then am blown away by the craftsmanship going into a project! Nice work on the tower.