Like the coal dock, we have precious little information about Pembroke’s water tower beyond a mention in the 1908 Grand Trunk Railway Bridges & Buildings book. Here we find that the town waterworks fed a 20,000 gallon tank that measured 13 feet by 12.5 feet in diameter. It had a 6″ drop pipe, a discharge pipe of 6″x13′. The conduit pipe was 4 inches. From one of the most infuriating newspaper accounts of all time, we know that it was painted, but not the colour of the paint.
In the background of one of my favourite overviews of the yard, there is a smudge that appears to be aligned with the track just beyond the Herbert St trestle. The trestle was 11 1/2 feet high, which could make the smudge the right sort of height. The smudge also has a smudge on it, which could be anything, including a six-inch drop pipe. However, the smudge is clearly rectangular, which would be unusual although not un-heard of for a water tank.
The other problem with the smudge is that it’s in entirely the wrong location for my layout. Beyond the Mary Street bridge (which is in the foreground of the photo with the smudge), I have compressed the track layout substantially, and if the smudge is the water tower, on my Pembroke it would be serving the siding only.
So, I think it best if we just pretend that we never noticed the smudge, and carry on making a plausible model of a very small water tank. Fortunately, I have some good photographs of a similar-sized water tank that was at Wakefield, Quebec the last time I checked. This was a modern installation for the tourist train operation that went defunct a few years ago. However, the tank looked old, and I believe it must have been repurposed from somewhere else.
Based on this tank, I composed a general arrangement drawing for a plausible 12’6″x13′ tank for Pembroke. The tall, narrow tank looks strange, but those are the dimensions we know, and so I’m reluctant to modify them. I’m still experimenting with the height of the trestle bents, which should put the floor of the tank between 8’6″ and 14′ above the rail, according to the Train Shed Cyclopedia.
Pembroke:87 