I acquired a Tenshodo 0-8-0 locomotive and tender on eBay at an attractive price. It came with an unusual tender — a Vanderbilt, with a coal bay rather than oil bunker. Also, its trucks have two axles, rather than the three axles that I have seen on other Tenshodo Vanderbilt tenders. The trucks may well not be OEM. They are Commonwealth type trucks, similar to some Greenway products but with less detailed casting. The tender in general looks somewhat like a US Hobbies Short Vanderbilt Tender VT-4, except that is has a coal hopper rather than an oil bunker, and the VT-4 also came with arch bar trucks. (To be sure, they can be changed out easily. But why?). I thought the tender might be a kit-bash, because it looks like a VT-4 modified to represent a coal carrying tender, but the top portion of the tender, representing the top of the coal bunker, has features on it that precisely mimic features on the main body. Thus, it appears to be part of the original product or kit, not an add-on.
The locomotive also has some unusual features. It came with a NWSL can motor (a now-obsolete 16mm x 30 mm round motor with 2 mm shafts), which I assume was installed by a prior owner and is not OEM unless Tenshodo started using can motors on its late runs. The configuration of some equipment on the locomotive is different than I have seen in any online photos of other Tenshodo 0-8-0 locomotives. The headlight is mounted on the top of the firebox, at the front, rather than on the front of the firebox. The bell is mounted on the front of the locomotive, rather than on the top of the firebox, well aft of the front end, as was standard on USRA 0-8-0 locomotives. There is no back plate on the boiler -- I don't think there ever was one, but therre's no room for one with the can motor installation.
I intend to install DCC, remove the jewels in the two lights and install LEDs, and paint.
I would be grateful for any information about this particular model, including whether the tender is made by Tenshodo or not, and what was the prototype for this particular configuration. It is definitely not a standard USRA 0-8-0.
Photos here:
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0N9JFy0VAAO_glIxEsW3Zhogw#locomotive1
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0d_BY3qPcTBP32t49d9T3xzZw#locomotive2
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0fIiIIfVTYFmUCXNCcfVJC2dg#locomotive3
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0V0b-dlZd4GTUjCYS94Opo5bw#tender1
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0O59PtFwhTuwwO7Dq6b7z5XTg#tender2
https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0P3oM17g3uoFlCCkJg_g2RoYA#underside
Lew Phelps
Pasadena CA
Modeling the fictional Ottawa & Northern Railway, set in Illinois and Wisconsin in 1953.
As far as the tender, not all Vanderbilt tenders had six axles or carried oil. The Missabe Road had several types of medium-sized steam engines that used a four-axle short Vandy tender with coal hopper, as did other railroads. Some Great Northern engines with the big Vanderbilt tenders carried coal, at least at some point during their careers.
USRA engines were based on then-common designs, so many pre-WW1 engines were similar in appearance to the USRA engines. The 0-8-0 USRA engine design was one of the most popular; copies of it were being built as late as the early fifties. So, many railroads had engines that were based on the USRA 0-8-0 even if they differed in details.
Your link says I have to sign in to DropBox. I was going to make it a live link.
Mike.
My You Tube
Stix, thanks for input. I am aware that many Vanderbilt tenders carried coal rather than oil, and that many of them had four axle tenders;. I just haven't seen any evidence online that Tenshodo ever modeled a four axle coal type Vanderbilt tender. My questions about the tender are more about who made the model that what was the prototype. Since I know the locomotive is a Tenshodo (name plate on back of cab and name stamped on undercarriage) I am mostly curious about what was the prototype for the unusual configuration I own.
thanks. I have tried to fix the problem with new links to each individual image,, i my original post. If thiis doesn't work, please let me know.
Hi Lew,
The photos are still not available unless you sign in. Maybe try hosting them on Imgur. It's free.
https://imgur.com/
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
wjstixThe 0-8-0 USRA engine design was one of the most popular; copies of it were being built as late as the early fifties.
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I have been told that the last steam locomotive built for a United States Customer was a USRA 0-8-0 for a private industrial service.
Is there any truth to that?
-Kevin
Living the dream.
My recollection is that the Tenshodo USRA 0-8-0 was one of the last brass steam locomotives offered -- on a fairly regular basis, not a limited run -- as a kit by PFM, well into the 1960s, and long after brass kits were otherwise pretty much a thing of the past. Thus I would imagine that it was fodder for modification by modelers who felt comfortable with soldering irons and re-detailing, because you could save a few bucks and weren't undoing so much from the git go as you would if modifying a finished model. That was also an era when various importers would offer their tenders separately (and I believe Kemtron may have had a brass Vanderbilt tender available as a kit).
By today's standards that 0-8-0 kit and those tenders (and other brass offerings such as cabooses and freight cars) seem mouth-wateringly cheap. December 1965 MR finds GEM models offering an Olympia Southern Pacific vanderbilt tender for $14.95 and a Fuji Models B&O vanderbilt tender also $14.95. It was PFM not GEM that offered that Tenshodo 0-8-0 kit, but a RTR USRA 0-8-0 from Fuji Models was $42.95, in custom versions for CB&Q, NYC or Southern. That didn't seem cheap at the time but it wasn't all that much more than what Bowser wanted for die cast steam.
The 1960s into the 1970s was also the era when the model magazines ran articles (indeed there was a monthly column on this in RMC) on modifying and remotoring brass.
You might have the results of a modeler's efforts - one of a kind.
Dave Nelson
According to another source, the last steam engine built for a US railroad was a N&W S1 0-8-0 in 1953.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"