Steel Water Tank Question

[NW Mailing List]

Hey everyone, 

This past couple weeks I’ve been exploring the ODOT (Ohio Department of Transportation) Aerial Image Archive (here: https://gis3.dot.state.oh.us/ODOTAerialArchive/).

The first place I looked was the Dorney coaling station south of Columbus. The high water tank (the “raw” or untreated water) was open on top (as expected) but I was surprised to see that the two low 200K treated / storage tanks also appeared to be open. That surprised me, so I started down to check other locations.  

The nearest location with a similar set up is Portsmouth, and it too shows open tops on the treated tanks. 

To me this is unintuitive since the treated water would be exposed to soot - especially in the Portsmouth yard - which would then make its way through the locomotive appliances, etc. 

Does anyone have any comments on why this was done? Rain water harvesting? Maybe soot / cinder doesn’t really cause problems?

Attached are Dorney (top -1959) and Portsmouth (bottom - 1954)




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