The Engineer's Notebook

Re: That's lot of water, but just a fraction of the billions of cubic feet of water that were once used by the nation's steam locomotives each day.

That seems like a lot--do you have a reference for that? If we assume (I know) that, based on the 6600 gallon capacity you mention earlier, topped off at least twice a day)--that is 13,000 gallons or about 1500 cubic feet. Say we double that, to 3000 cu. ft. If that is anywhere near the typical usage per day, that would mean something like 333,000 locomotives to use one billion cu.ft. per day.

What is the number of steam locomotives that ever existed in the US?

Thanks for the comment, rhkramer. The "billions of cubic feet of water" reference is from the Catskill Archive. Specifically, it comes from the fifth paragraph:

"The railroads of the United States use enormous quantities of water for locomotives and other purposes. It is estimated that the railroads consume around 80 billion cubic feet of water each year. This is enough to fill a reservoir 1,000 feet wide, 10 feet deep and 1,515 miles long."

Unfortunately, that reference doesn't contain a date or date range. I'll have to do some more research to find out the number of working steam locomotives that are still in the U.S., and the greatest number that ever existed.

Thanks! You don't have to go any further. If they use 80 billion cubic feet each year, that is not billions every day, but more like 1/5 of a billion every day, or something like 200 million cubic feet per day.

Assuming the 80 billion / year figure is fairly accurate, dividing that by 365 gives about 220 million cubic feet per day.

If the spout has about a one foot diameter at the base and about 10 inches at the outlet, it probably was fed by being closely coupled and attached to a large water tower. The framework is clearly support structure which might schematically indicate where a few of the tank supports might have been located.

In the UK they are known as "water cranes". Each pre-1923 company had a range of standard patterns. In the absence of building achitecture style it is still possible to identify the operating company in an old unlabelled photograph by reference to the station or loco depot water crane, with the style of signalling installation being used to confirm it.

That top shot looks like a pretend one for the tourists.

The spout itself is merely a funnel. In the old days it was fed from an elevated tank that someone was lucky enough to have the job of filling. The transfer was relatively quick. The modern version shown is for a novelty system in which speed is not a driving factor, so a smaller pipe driven by municipal water pressure is acceptable as time is not of the essence.

"I'm a little big teapot, short tall and stout..."