Following on from my last “View from the line #4”  post about the imposing water tower building at Fisherton Sarum it makes sense to look at the last item in the pipeline, so to speak, namely the humble water crane.

Fisherton Sarum, just like Salisbury on which it draws its inspiration, has two type of water cranes for filling locomotive tanks and tenders.

The first type are of one of the original London and South Western Railway designs with a large diameter pipe complete with gloge type control valve with side mounted leather bag to reach the locomotive fillers. The type at Salisbury had round valve bodies whilst some of the other LSWR style cranes had vlaves contained within a  larger diameter pipes style body.

With the advent of the Bulleid pacific locomotives that had tenders with high side raves the original style ex LSWR water cranes were not tall enough to easily reach the tender fillers.

Therefore a later taller Southern design with a swiveling top arm and separate standpipe style valve were installed replacing some but not all the older LSWR type cranes.

My models of the two types of cranes are scratch built and soldered together from a mix of brass rod, tube, washers  and wire with the globe valve body being a brass bead. The handwheels are etched brass from  Mainly Trains. I have represented the leather bags using rolled tissue paper, flattened slightly, soaked in dope (as used by model aircraft builders) to hold its shape and then suitably painted.