I have seen a lot of model kits for engine coaling facilities and ash facilities that include under-rail pits to dump the coal or ash and conveyors to then load it into bunkers or cars. But, the models of the raw sand bins next to drying houses seem to rely on magic for the sand to get into those bins. Can somebody please give me some ideas of how the real railroads got their raw sand into their open-air bins for processing by their drying facility?
Depends upon your era, and also even the railroad itself. Some railroads had their own on-line pits, where they could get ballast, sand, rip rap and? They directly loaded it to often job assigned company gondolas, or later into hoppers. When spotted, gondolas were obviously hand shoveled into storage bins. Hoppers would dump their load into a hopper from which it was conveyed or drawn by auger.
In modern era it's not unheard of to just leave a company-owned covered hopper of sand as the 'ground container' with an air-unload hose connected to it in the immediate area of the sand towers with a pumphouse of sorts nearby. That's only common if your railroad has free sand cars and sand online. I was trying to figure the same thing out with Winslow when I observed the not-a-coincidence of the ever-present covered hopper in the neighborhood near the tower.
I WAS going to do as Randgust said with a hopper...but I ran out of room for a dedicated track for the hopper
When those sand houses were common, labor was cheap. It was usually shoveled from gondolas into that bin. All you need is a track next to the bin and some guys standing around with shovels. Remember that they used a lot less sand than coal. While a steam locomotive tender might have 10's of tons of coal capacity, the sand domes only held a few hundred pounds of sand. Tim
Thanks to this thread I realize that I forgot to put two guys with shovels in the sand gon next to the bin...too soon old, too late smart. :blush:
Here is a photo taken just a few years ago. Shows an assigned company sand hopper, spotted and partially dumped:
The LV had a sand house in Coxton Yard near me..I think they used the same pump that filled the tower to suck it out of the covered hoppers with a hose..I'll see if I can find out for sure..
Didn't the sand have to be dried before it could be used and wasn't that the purpose of that little shack next to the sand pit. Sand is dumped/shoveled into the pit then dried in the dryer then into the overhead covered container where it was protected from the elements. From there it was a gravity feed to the engine's sand domes.
Yes. It often needed to be dried, so it would not clump and plug the sander pipes, or freeze in cold weather.
Don't know that it was ever done, but augers such as used for grain could move sand. For a while at least.
Small pit under the rails using drop bottom gondolas with a conveyor taking the sand into the holding bin. Conveyors were nothing fancy just a tow behind rig that could be positioned when needed or used elsewhere. Much later in the diesel era smaller series covered hoppers in company service only marked for sand. The sand was loaded as dried sand and the covered hopper kept it that way. Individual roads modified the bottoms to accept semi rigid hoses and the sand was brown directly into the tower ready to go.
