10-15-2009, 10:11 AM
I'm not sure about the sanding tower. Does it swing around like the fueling tower? I think the two pieces were used together. The railroad would top off the sand when fueling the locomotive. I think the fuel hose would be positioned between 2 adjacent tracks to allow fueling of locomotives from either side. This allows the fueler to swing the boom over a locomotive to fuel it while the hostler moves another locomotive off of the adjacent track and another one into position. That way as soon as one locomotive is fueled, the fueler just swings over to the other track and fuels another locomotive while the hostler changes out the fueled locomotive for another one. If no locomotive is being fueled, the boom would be positioned parallel between the two tracks. If the sanding tower boom is not movable, it may be that it was intended to have the boom parallel to the tracks and the sanding hose just swung over the locomotive. The hoses should reach the sanding hatches of any locomotive, and the boom should be high enough that gravity would feed the sand into the locomotive, I think. I think the reason for the two hoses on the sanding tower is to allow them to fill sand hatches on both ends of the locomotive without moving the loco.