One of the most important matters which received the attention of the management [of the PRR] in 1905 was to provide a sufficient water supply.... Arrangements were made to secure an adequate supply of good water...and for the construction of the reservoirs and the piping....The water supply system now embraces 36 reservoirs and intakes... their total capacity is three-billion gallons. The total length of pipe lines in the system is 441 miles. The number of gallons furnished in 1926 was over 14 billions. The area of mountain land owned in the water supply system is 27,300 acres. The benefits more than justified the expenditures of 30 million dollars. --  (H. W. Schotter, The Growth and Development of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, December 1927.)

Early railroad accounting did not always recognize the cost of the billions of gallons of water being consumed. Water had to be acquired from a viable source, piped to where it was needed, and treated to remove impurities and excessive minerals that impaired boiler efficiency.

On the northeastern lines, however, the real trick was getting the water into the tender without having to stop the train. The earliest scoops were crude affairs. The New York Central scoop system was patented in 1870 by its designer, William Buchanan, Master Mechanic. This device, termed a “waterjerk,” hung down into the trough just in front of the rear axle of the tender. The water pipe apparently ran up near the back of the tender, however, detailed descriptions of the system vary. In any event, early scoop designs left much to be desired.

William F. Kiesel, IV, grandson of the PRR’s noted Mechanical Engineer, fondly recounts an incident from his family history:

Little Gladys Rankine nine years old, traveled in 1910 with her mother from Denver on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy to Chicago, where she changed to the New York Central for the ride to New York City. Throughout her later life, she would tell the family of the time a kindly gentleman had taken her onto the rear platform of the train so she could see the magnificent spray as a train on a nearby track took on water from the pan. She would always end that story by proclaiming “little did I ever expect to marry the son of the man responsible for the water scoop!”

The Kiesel Water Scoop on PRR No. 460

Gladys Rankine by then had become Mrs. William F. Kiesel, III. Her father-in-law, the PRR’s Mechanical Engineer, a holder of 135 patents, had early in his career studied the problems encountered by contemporary water scoops. Following early experimentation, the PRR adopted a standard scoop in 1879 that featured a copper dipper (the part that lowers into the water trough).

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But as the scoop was lowered into the water in the pan, terrific resistance was encountered, such that great force was needed to lift the scoop back up; consequently, the scoops often did not perform as required. As train speeds increased, the scoop lifting problem intensified.

William F. Kiesel, Jr, obtained certain design rights from German engineers who had been working on the problem unsuccessfully, and in 1894, he obtained a patent on a new design that balanced the force of the water entering the scoop against the water exiting the scoop into the tender tank. This innovation doubled the efficiency of the system under test conditions: at 70 mph, 3.3 gallons were picked up per linear foot of trough (somewhat less in regular service). Kiesel’s work on this and other railroad design innovations earned him the Franklin Institute’s first George R. Henderson medal in 1928.

W. F. Kiesel's 1894 Scoop Patent

The original manual control specified in Kiesel’s 1894 patent involved the fireman activating a long rod in the front of the tender to lower and raise the scoop. This rod was known to kick back at times, causing bodily harm. A later design employing air cylinders to operate the scoop greatly improved both safety and efficiency. Other railroads conducted their own research, but Kiesel’s work established basic standards for scoop design. In England, scoops were lowered and raised by screw-type control handles, by steam power, or even by “vacuum of the brake service.” Some tank engines even had double scoops for picking up water in either direction.

Sketches exist that show some American scoop mechanism and dipper design variations, but all are basically similar. Scoops could be found on passenger and freight engine tenders alike, including the PRR Atlantic, Pacific, Mikado, and Mountain classes, as well as the NYC Mohawks and Hudsons, among others.

The New York Central installed a new scoop design in the late 1930s that enabled taking on three gallons of water per foot for a total of 7200 gallons at speeds up to 80 mph, with only half the spillage of its other systems. A common problem in taking on water at high speed was the rapid buildup of air and water pressure, which would lift the tender hatches open and in extreme cases, spring the tender’s side walls. In the 1940s, the Central became concerned about window breakage on trains traveling on tracks parallel to other trains scooping water. They conducted several studies with a motion picture camera atop the tender to photograph the hatch as the tank overflowed at speed. This resulted in the design of modified scoops and new overflow vents to direct excess water downward to track level (see “High-Speed Water Scoop,” Trains, April 1945).

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