A Sidebar
Readers may never have paused to realize that the steam which is emitted so copiously by a steam locomotive comes from water stored in the locomotive's tender, in a tank underneath the tender's coal bunker. As locomotives usually consumed water twice as fast as they consumed fuel, stops to replenish water were common.
1954: LIRR #108 taking on water at Jerusalem Avenue
Collection of historian Art Huneke, viewed at
http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/hicksville/PRR-H10s-108_taking-water-Hicksville-1954_ArtHuneke.jpg
What you're seeing: With the crossing gates raised, an automobile is starting to
pass in front of the stopped locomotive. Underground pipes connect the LIRR
water tank (visible in the distance, left) to the "water column" in the foreground.
Its spigot directs water down into the filler pipe of the tender's water reservoir.
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