10/19/2026
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE COLLECTION: The Museum’s Water Tower
Water is essential to life. A human can only survive three to five days without water. A healthy horse drinks 15-20 gallons of water per day, and can only remain healthy for 24-48 hours without water. But it’s the Iron Horse that is especially dependent on water. A typical steam locomotive could travel only 50 to 150 miles before needing more water, depending of course on the locomotive size, the weight of its consist, and the route itself. Heavy loads could drain a typical water tender in just 25 to 40 miles, consuming water at a rate of 50 to 100 gallons per mile.
This dependence on water impacted every aspect of steam railroading. While an average tender could carry enough coal or oil to power the locomotive for perhaps 300 to 400 miles, water was used three or four times faster, making it necessary to have a plentiful supply of water all along the line. This was especially challenging in places that were arid and/or subject to freezing, sub-zero temperatures.
Early in the history of railroading, a solution was devised. It consisted of elevated water towers or “tanks,” sometimes square but more often round, holding up to 15,000 gallons of water which could quickly be fed into locomotive tenders by gravity. At major junctions, these water tanks could store as much as 30,000 gallons! The water for these towers was supplied from ponds, streams, rivers, or wells, either by gravity or by using pumps powered by adjacent windmills, steam boilers, oil fired engines or later, by electricity.
NO AGUA AND HEADINGTON TANK
The history of these early wood water towers comes alive at the Colorado Railroad Museum with its own wood water tower that is used whenever steam trains operate. It is officially named Headington Tank to recognize the sponsors that made it possible. Immediately adjacent is a pumphouse, which museum co-founder Bob Richardson named “No Agua” (no water). There actually was an historic water stop with that ironic name located 34 miles south of Antonito, Colorado on the Chili Line of the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW). Water was especially scarce on this route, and while there was water at the original No Agua, it was limited.
The museum’s tower dates from 1964, when it was constructed to supply water for locomotive No. 346, which was the first engine to be fired up at the Museum. This tower served faithfully until 2008, when it was reconstructed with a plastic liner to hold 10,000 gallons. In appearance, this tower is not an exact replica, but is especially close in design to D&RGW prototypes once located at Jack’s Cabin (near Crested Butte) and another near Villa Grove, north of Alamosa.
Placing elevated water towers along railroad lines might seem like an easy solution to the water challenge, but this was actually often an incredibly complex and difficult operation. First, you had to find the water, which in dry locations could involve digging a 100-foot deep well. Then railroads had to secure water rights, construct the tower, devise a way to pipe, sluice or pump the water to the tank.
In harsh winter climates, walls six to ten inches thick and filled with sawdust had to be built around the pipes to protect them from freezing and locomotives needed to be fitted with steam hoses to defrost frozen water in wintertime. Maintenance crews needed to periodically check in at each water tower, to ensure everything was functioning properly and that any leakage was minimal—and to thaw frozen piping during especially bad winter weather.
Filling tenders from towers was a simple maneuver of pulling down a “spout,” and letting the water gush by gravity into a locomotive’s tender tank until it overflowed. Because the process began by “jerking” the spout into position, the towns that grew up around water towers were called “jerkwater towns,” a derogatory slang word meaning a small, remote, and unimportant rural settlement. However, even today you can look at any map of America and see steady lines of equally spaced towns that were created to provide water and fuel for railroads.
A TOWERING LEGACY
Though each railroad built their own towers, they all took on some common characteristics of shape, size, design, and function. Sometimes water columns or standpipes were installed in place of actual towers, particularly at important junctions where space was limited, but even then, their water would be supplied from nearby, elevated tanks.
In certain regions, particularly in the American Southwest, railroads even ended up developing water systems benefiting towns and municipalities, because of the interdependent nature of these towns with the railroads that employed many residents.
Starting in the late 1930s and 1940s, one of the prime benefits of newfangled diesel locomotives was that they did not require prodigious amounts of water. As diesels became more prevalent on America’s railroads, water towers were abandoned and left to return to nature. Still, many of these romantic icons of early railroading remain throughout Colorado, in particular at the state’s historic operating steam railroads. All have well maintained or replica water towers standing tall, a testament to the engineering and ingenuity that was required to make steam railroading possible in all types of terrain and weather.
Want to learn more about the Colorado Railroad Museum’s water tower, and the associated history of supplying water to steam locomotives? Watch this Big Train Tour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L11LCdrpx1k.
