Sandboxes

From Pontiacguy1:

The best working sander I've ever seen was on Harry 'Schorcher' Bean's Southern Pacific 2-8-0. He had a tank made under each running board that looked like an air tank, but which held sand. He had a manual valve that would drop the sand down in front of the wheels. He used a slightly oversize pipe, and he had a handle that came out at the back of the cab that would activate the valve. Gravity feed only. He had to manually activate each side, and his technique was to open and then close one side then the other in quick succession when going up a grade. His locomotive would pull quite large loads for its size, no doubt because of the superior adhesion that it had.

From PennsyK4#612:

We've got working sanders on our K4, and I can get you drawings to build Pennsy style sanders. We use finely screened casting sand and we have enough to last our lifetime. Originally we use a squeeze bulb to "puff" air into the traps. That got tiring on Mill Creek RR mountain division, so I got a small 12V air pump like the ones for in an aquarium. Now we flip a switch in the tender and we have continuous flow of sand when needed.

References

• Working sanders, Modeltec, February 1986