Track Pans
I started thinking about building Track Pans recently for use on our club's train layouts. A steam heavy RR like the PennLUG needs to get it's water from somewhere and with my PRR steam fleet and Nate being suduced by the New York Central (two big users of pans) they just seem right for us. So I spent the better part of my Saturday researching Pennsylvania RR style track pans (fortunately I have a few books on the Pennsy) and then did my best to translate into LEGO.
This isn't perfect but should still be a good representation of Pennsylvania RR style practice. The pans themselves were pretty narrow (only about 19inches) so I wanted to keep mine to 2 studs wide. Along each side of the track for the length of the pans the Pennsy would typically have cobble stone lined runoff channels to manage spillage and keep erosion of the roadbed to a minimum. A locomotive moving at speed while scooping could throw up a lot of water.
Actual track pans would be quite a bit longer than this (and when PennLUG eventually builds ours they will be) but this should give some idea of what I'm going for.
Now I need to design a pump house for the water pumps and to provide steam heat to keep the pans from freezing in winter.
Track Pans
I started thinking about building Track Pans recently for use on our club's train layouts. A steam heavy RR like the PennLUG needs to get it's water from somewhere and with my PRR steam fleet and Nate being suduced by the New York Central (two big users of pans) they just seem right for us. So I spent the better part of my Saturday researching Pennsylvania RR style track pans (fortunately I have a few books on the Pennsy) and then did my best to translate into LEGO.
This isn't perfect but should still be a good representation of Pennsylvania RR style practice. The pans themselves were pretty narrow (only about 19inches) so I wanted to keep mine to 2 studs wide. Along each side of the track for the length of the pans the Pennsy would typically have cobble stone lined runoff channels to manage spillage and keep erosion of the roadbed to a minimum. A locomotive moving at speed while scooping could throw up a lot of water.
Actual track pans would be quite a bit longer than this (and when PennLUG eventually builds ours they will be) but this should give some idea of what I'm going for.
Now I need to design a pump house for the water pumps and to provide steam heat to keep the pans from freezing in winter.