Bill:
Those long troughs were called jerkwaters, because the train literally jerked the water out of them. A town was called a jerwater town if it was so unimportant that the train going through would get its water on the fly rather than stopping under a water tower.
My kids were both into trains a good bit (I have had every Thomas the Tank Engine accessorry known to man) and we have taken several lovely train trips on restored steam engines here in Colorado.
On the Combres Toltec line, which crosses the Colo NM state line 7 times, there are several stops for water. The most interesting is the one that has the tank underground in a hillside above the stop. There's a large pole sticking out of the ground that has a float on the bottom so the train people can tell how much water is left in the underground tank.
The reason the tank is underground is to prevent it from freezing in the winter, since it gets down to around 20 below quite frequently.
Ted
