We continue to look for obscure cases of technical modifications to the nodes of Russian railways, which were completely unnecessary. And here it was far from limited to water-lifting devices.
The steam boiler used in steam locomotives, of course, was far from ideal in technical terms, and sooner or later it would be replaced by a more advanced one. However, at the same time, at first, not the steam boilers themselves, but their water supply systems began to receive very strange metamorphoses. It should be noted that water supply systems at that time were used not only for refueling steam locomotives, but also for covering all household needs of the station personnel.
As everyone is well aware, the water supply system of steam locomotives does not end with water lifting structures. There is one more important unit in it - a reservoir building, in the common people referred to as a "water pump". Its task is to accumulate water at a certain height for its delivery by gravity to end users (steam locomotives in this case). Remains of those ancient water bodies are still preserved in large quantities at many stations of the vast country, in some places even in a completely well-groomed form. The size of water bodies was determined by the specific water consumption, or, simply, by the productivity.
At large junction stations, water bodies were much larger than at others, this is quite understandable. At first glance, there is nothing technically difficult here. But this is only at first glance. Let's dive into the material. So, the water buildings in the old photos.
This is a body of water at an unidentified station in the early 20th century. At the back is a water-lifting building. Oddly enough, but it's winter outside, and no smoke comes from any chimney. Water tends to freeze, and if pipes freeze in such devices, it will be almost a disaster (whoever dealt with such manifestations will not let them lie).
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Similar photos from other stations. There are clearly chimneys on the towers in the center, but smoke does not come from any. If you want, google, there are a lot of old photos of such structures, but you will not find the smoke coming out of the chimney of a reservoir building anywhere.
What's the matter? Well, judging by the fact that in the water-lifting buildings (see the previous article) there were some incomprehensible devices with a chimney not intended for smoke, obviously, the secret of water-carrying buildings must be sought inside. Let's try.
This is a well-known typical water body building, which were molded in hundreds throughout the country at almost all stations where there was a need for them. A few small details: the chimney, indicated unambiguously in the drawing, suddenly breaks off and the installation places for the furnace are not indicated; the chimney itself is clearly not one of the walls of the boiler, it is passed through the sleeve and from above is fixed with lanyards to the supporting structures of the roof.
It's difficult to judge the first detail, perhaps the engineer simplified his work so as not to clutter up the drawing. But on the second, questions arise. Why was the chimney led through the sleeve through the boiler? Heat transfer to the water in the tank in this case worsens at times. Let's just assume that in this case the drawing was drawn by a person far from heat engineering, and let's look at other drawings.
This is the "Album of executive standard drawings of the Moscow District Railway" 1903-1908. It can be seen that more or less competent people were already drawing. The pipes for the supply and intake of water to the tanks, as well as the heating device at the bottom in the center, are well-drawn. Let's take a closer look.
It is quite logical that the chimney again passes through the sleeve in the boiler without touching the walls. Since there was no welding in those days, the tanks were made on rivets, due to the slightest thermal expansion in the details of the tank, cracks would form through which water would flow away. To heat the water, special circulation pipes were used, connected at the bottom to a conventional fuel boiler. To heat the water in the upper (for example) tank, it was necessary to let water through the melted boiler in the directions indicated by the arrows. Theoretically, water can go like this, if not for one "BUT" - for the water to circulate, it is necessary to make a "suction" from the upper bend. With such a length of pipes and their diameter, it is impossible to do this with human lungs. And without this, the water will simply stand, and even if it is heated,there will be just clouds of steam and no circulation (I observed something similar more than once when would-be masters did wrong water heating). It turns out that they drew well, but the trouble is with the principle of action. Another blooper:
This is the same boiler for heating, from the same collection. Everyone is good, but again a few BUTs: the design is riveted, and the water pressure from the two tanks is very large; the size of the furnace is such that only one log or a ladle of coal can be thrown into it. From the first detail, we can say that due to local heating of the metal, this structure is very unreliable in terms of tightness.
The slightest crack, and water from the upper riveting rows can penetrate into the firebox and fill the flame.
It is very difficult to repair such a defect. It is completely imprudent to hope that the gap will corrode over time, in this case, I know from practice that this does not happen due to constant heating and cooling.
According to the second detail, we can say that this boiler is clearly not designed for a large volume of combustible fuel. Judging by the eye-width of the two-inch pipe, the width of the furnace was 0.2 m, the height was 0.1 m, and at the same time it was still oval.
And the outer diameter of the boiler itself (with the thickness of the walls) was only 1.062 m. Even in city baths, stoves without heating water around their entire surface were larger and their furnaces were wider.
With such a volume of a building as a reservoir, and the presence of a specific heating element, in addition to air - water, in winter it must be heated continuously and its dimensions must be much larger in order to avoid freezing of the supply and discharge pipes. There was no constant circulation in these pipes, the water in them periodically stood, so this winter had a problem. And what happens according to the drawings?
Well, at least, the history of the domestic industry does not tell us something. As a maximum, all free access to archival documents is filled with pseudo-historical falsification, born after 1920, and by the time of digitization it turned yellow so that it is no longer visually distinguishable from documents of the 19th century.
Sometimes it happens that believable material flashes through the omissions of the censors, but this is more the exception than the rule. And in this case, in the drawings, they slipped us an ordinary wood-burning titanium, which was used in the 20th century until the end of the USSR, and in railway barracks in particular. By definition, he could not work in a reservoir building with such dimensions.
The reservoir building at Likhobory station is very mysterious. Its design was typical; the same buildings were installed at the Cherkizovo and Ugreshskaya stations.
Smoke, oddly enough, does not come from the chimney, although it looks like there is snow. At Ugreshskaya station, the building has been preserved and even restored:
But judging by the through visibility in the windows, the tanks have been dismantled there. In addition, the roof has also been replaced. Most likely, all the secrets of the building were destroyed. There were other water-based buildings:
This is Uyar station. Surprisingly, the heating pipes also break off somewhere in the middle of the building. Let's take a closer look:
Strange, but the chiaroscuro at the top of the chimney suggests that this is not a chimney that goes out, but a single cylindrical part. There is no ceiling, and there is virtually no attic space. Very strange in terms of heat saving. But this is not a mistake, it is not without reason that there is an inscription about the laying of roofing roofing or tarred felt underneath the roofing. And a very interesting inscription about a hewn slab in the cornice. What is this technology for such a building size?
The visor protrudes outward for at least half a meter and no joint seams are visible.
In general, there is no doubt (I can be wrong, but I see no other) - this is ordinary reinforced concrete with thick metal bonds inside. Chimneys, of course, are gone now. And a lot of attic windows for ventilation, from different sides of the building. Very mannered architecture. And what was the secret here? It seems that for a reason the "chimneys" were cut off in the middle in the drawing. The wood-fired titanium at the bottom of them would clearly look nonsense. Offhand, you can see the usual double dome, and there is nothing more than a technological church. Something similar was once described by me here.
If, according to the results of an examination of the cornice and brick parts above the windows, metal connections were found in them, there would be no doubt what and how it worked here.
Surprisingly, the building has been well preserved. But if you look closely at the roof of the old building and the new one, you can see that there was some additional cornice above the reinforced concrete, which is now missing. And the roofing material is already different.
The secrets of the building have been destroyed here too. But let's turn to the collection "Description of the construction of the Kharkov-Kherson section" from 1905-1907, on which in the last part there were strange drawings of water-lifting devices.
Hmmm … And here it turns out the chimney is not a chimney at all, and the boiler or wood-burning titanium are not at all the same, and even a niche for cleaning the grates is not provided. Everything else is depicted very realistically. Interestingly, at the Kopani station this tower is currently not at all.
The war may have ruined, but there are too many coincidences for her to mysteriously disappear. But in general, there are many old photos of water bodies, where a really pipe is captured at the top, and not some kind of cylindrical blank. There is also an interesting drawing on this score:
As you can see, instead of a boiler, there is the same incomprehensible device from which the pipe comes out. And there are no circulation pipes that could fit this device for supplying water for heating. What is this device? It is worth noting that all pipes, even messengers, working for overflow, are shown up to the flanges.
Unfortunately, there is not a single photo of a railway water body in Kherson, either old or modern, in the public domain. It is very difficult to establish whether they exist now or not. But this is not yet the main question. The main thing - what kind of device is located in them in place of the wood-burning titanium? Alas, there are no publicly available photographic materials about the internal structure of water bodies of railways. Maybe there are photos of other buildings? Oddly enough, there is, but not with us, but on foreign resources.
What is this wonderful device? If you look closely, then this is a stove, but only without a firebox, a blower and grate bars. More precisely, the air intake into it goes through the oval holes near the floor, which are located at the bottom on all sides of this "oven". And the "pipe" of this "furnace" goes to the metal connections of the stairs. Well, the perforations in the upper part release the heated air to the outside, which means that there is no smoke inside this "oven" at all.
Actually, compare it with the drawings of water bodies of the Kharkov-Kherson railway and, as they say, find 10 differences (I see only one - here it is cylindrical, and there it is egg-shaped). Well, and, probably, the subject of heating here is the upper openwork cast-iron stove (hence, probably, the word “stove” became a household word and was transferred to gas equipment), and there the same water titanium.
So in this case, as one well-known mustachioed character says, not everything is so simple. Facts are a stupid thing, and photographs are even more so.
To be continued.
P. S. Do not believe the overwhelming majority of executive drawings of buildings and structures of Russian railways before 1917. This is a giant stuffing of tuftology.
P. P. S. For those interested in this article, I propose to get acquainted with other no less interesting structures of water bodies of that time:
Lapy station of Grodno province. - Warsaw railway.
Grodno station - Warsaw railway.
Novoselie station of the Petersburg province. - Baltic railway.
Station Pskov - Warsaw railway.
Strugi White station - Baltic railway.
Station Verzhbolovo - Warsaw railway.
Author: tech_dancer