Filling an engine tank from a creek

Here is an example of that sort of thing a couple of years ago on a Romanian logging railway:



It was probably common on U.S. logging lines but I wonder how common it was on U.S. common carrier lines.

I was thinking that the cisterns on the DRGW were generally used as water sources by the local railway workers. But it was noted above that one on the Chile line was the source of water for locomotive standpipe. And there is one a Cumbres for the standpipe there, as will as Sublette I believe. I wonder to what extent the supply of water by tank car was usually/normally/occasionally a supplement to some local supply like a creek or well, if that source either dried up or froze up. What I find curious is that the DRGW was still supplying some of the cisterns by tank car as late as the 1960's, when things like electricity, small pumps, well drilling equipment, even local water systems were much more common than in the days of a frontier railroad....or perhaps that was just an example of how little investment the DRGW put into the ng. in its last quarter century of operation.


JBWX



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2012 10:40AM by John West.