[65steam]

I am planning a small layout with a town on one end and a small yard and locomotive facility on the other end. The layout will be in the late transition era, and so the facility will be a steam facility that is transitioning to diesel. I have an outbound track with a coaling tower and a sand station. The sand station has an old tower for steam locomotives and a new tower for diesel locomotives. It also has a bunker for sand that is adjacent to the drying house. My question is what sort of facility or equipment do I need for getting the sand into the bunker. I have not been able to find useful information on this question anywhere that I have looked.

 

[CTValleyRR]

What kind of a "locomotive servicing facility" is it?

The sanding towers themselves generally have a conveyor belt or compressed air system to get sand up from the drying kiln to the delivery tanks, from where gravity deposits it into the loco. A small facility that services locos infrequently might have sand delivered by truck, moved to the sanding tower by bucket loader, and shoveled into the kiln's hopper by hand. A larger facility that serves multiple locos a day would generally get sand in hoppers, dumping them into a pit below the tracks, where a conveyor system would move it into the sand house. And of course there are other combinations possible (hopper dumps from a raised trestle and a loader moves it to the sand house, etc). Pretty much, there is a prototype for everything. If you're modeling a specific facility, do some research and see if you can find how they did it in real life.

 

[65steam]

Sorry for my slow response, I have been away for a while.

The facility with only service a few locomotives, so it is quite small. The sanding facility is similar to ones that I have seen online. It has a small drying house with an enclosed bunker attached to it.

It seems that I would need some sort of heavy equipment to lift the sand into the Bunker. I'm wondering, though, how the sand gets from the bunker into the drying house. There is a very small, window like opening on one side of the drying house. Does that have something to do with this process?

Finally, might sand be delivered to the facility in gondolas? If so, how would they be unloaded?

Thanks for the help.

 

[CTValleyRR]

Sorry for my slow response, I have been away for a while.

The facility with only service a few locomotives, so it is quite small. The sanding facility is similar to ones that I have seen online. It has a small drying house with an enclosed bunker attached to it.

It seems that I would need some sort of heavy equipment to lift the sand into the Bunker. I'm wondering, though, how the sand gets from the bunker into the drying house. There is a very small, window like opening on one side of the drying house. Does that have something to do with this process?

Finally, might sand be delivered to the facility in gondolas? If so, how would they be unloaded?

Thanks for the help.

I actually already answered your first question: bucket loaders and a poor dude with a shovel... Or a material conveyor with a chute that goes through the window.

As far as gondolas, anything is possible. I have seen an operator lever a full, sized excavator into the bed of a gon from a trackside platform using nothing but the bucket arm and treads. And back out the same way. Some gons also have drop sides or ends. Or there's that poor dude with the shovel again (store bulk sand in the gon and shovel it into a wheel barrow, pickup truck, conveyor hopper, etc. as needed).

Here's the thing. If you're modeling a specific place, then research should reveal how they actually did it, and if you're not, it just has to make sense. It can't be wrong, because you made it up. As long as it could be done that way, you're ok.

 

[65steam]

Thanks