LOLOLOL Big Boy is a he? In name only maybe. If this is the case in todays 'public correctness', then i better go out and appologize to my car, boat, tractor, and any other machine Ive talked to over the years. I will have to rename a few even!
I know how the Big Boy name came about, however, Im quite sure scrawling "Big Girl" on the boiler face wouldnt have gone over well in the shop. We know how female units feel about their cabooses being called big, this wouldnt be any different.
As for the original post, yes.... tenders and parts were traded all the time. Railroads even ordered locos with mismatched tenders so that when they arrived on site, those new tenders could be swapped with other locos. Even before the new ones rolled their first in-service mile. Not uncommon.
Somewhere on the tender frame you should find a builders "number" or "plate" (just like the loco). Reference that against existing builders records (if any survive) and that should give you the original owner (loco number). Trucks and body will not have this info as those can be changed anytime. The frame is the hard part, and tends to stay when trucks or bodys are replaced.
Also check the builders photo for 4006. Sometimes the builder would place the tender number on a placard and place it under the tender, just like they would the loco. Somtimes. This may aid you in a reverse search for the tender number against what you have in the shop.
S Connor
never mind , t'was just making fun of what actally many people do , namely keep a generally attributed gender ; the like applies to British King class GWR 4-6-0 and the lone Duke of Glouchester - an especially upsetting case to those involved since *he* turned out unfit to compete with *her* ( Duchess of Abercorn ) as revealed by BR roadtests and Rugby test plant data - *gee* .
So -
you apologize
I apologize
we all apologize
and that sort of sorts it out and balances it .
Regards
= J =
Juniatha Uhm , while it was not unusual for RRs to swap tenders at overhauls of locomotive , giving the one tender ready to the loco proper leaving repair bay , I noticed a certain contradiction in this thread’s header : Big Boy’s tender is not *her* (!?) own (!?) Umpf – shouldn’t it be *his* , as you address this Biggest of Boys ? Boy , oh boy , these are problems , I guess some people out there would envy us for having … *gee* Juniatha
Juniatha
Every Big Boy is a *he*, you are right.
When I made this post I was still relatively new to refering to engines as "he" or "she". It just happened that way.
So, for the record, I'm sorry for a little typo, everyone, no need to get worked up over it.
-A learning railfan.
Big Boy 4006's tender isn't her own?
Well, shhhhhhhh, I won't say anything if the rest of you don't, we wouldn't want to upset her, would we?
And per Juniatha's comment "shouldn't it be HIS?" I don't know, this might lead to trans-gender issues beyond the scope of this Forum!
S. Connorsome of us volunteers have found evidence that our Big Boy, number 4006, does not have her original tender.
.
Dr DOn the Hudson River, I wonder if anyone has a side scan sonar - they ought to be able to find that Hudson truck. They probably just don't know what the heck it is when they do see it.
It would take a very good rig on the Hudson to find that trailing truck. Little Falls is about halfway between Albany and Syracuse, a great deal west of the Hudson...
S. Connor,
Seems there are a lot of NYC collectors who hit the scrap line and got a wide variety of headlights, bells, whistles etc. of particular note is the headlight and number board of NYC 5344 the engine LIONEL copied for the famous scale model Hudson 700E they made in the 1930s.
One Hudson tender NYC X5313 - with six wheel Hudson trucks survives as a railroad auxilliary fuel and water car. It has to be in the hands of some museum as I have a modern photo of it lettered for the New York Central. It would also be cool if the rear truck with booster from NYC 5315 survived.
Knowing the size of Hudson trailing truck I doubt if anyone hauled it out of the river short of dredging the river for navigation or salvage purposes. I worked on PM 1225 four wheel trailing truck, I had to re-install one of the huge "truck frame pedestal ties" that were removable for the axles to be dropped out. The four wheel truck was quite a large steel casting and PM 1225 didn't have a booster engine.
I would bet the Hudson trailing truck from NYC 5315 is still there intact and in fairly good condition. One of my friends Kile Sise is on the Detroit Police Dive Team. A couple of years ago they were diving in the Detroit river just off shore from down town Detroit. There they found untouched in the fresh water the 300 year old artillery cannons from the French fort built at Detroit in the 1700s. These guys regulary pull out crates of booze dumped by rum runners in the 1920s with really good Canadian Whiskey. Some of the speed boats and guns have been recovered also from the river - I saw a nice Thompson machine gun come up out of the river out of a shot up boat off of Belle Isle.
On the Mohawk River, I wonder if anyone has a side scan sonar - they ought to be able to find that Hudson truck. They probably just don't know what the heck it is when they do see it. I know the Detroit river shure has a lot of junk cars, it had the ships anchor lost off of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald before it sank in Lake Superior in the 1970s. Most of the heavy stuff won't come out without a barge and crane, like the French artillery. I can't even count the number of cars they pulled out of the river for years - old cars from the 1920s. When they dredged the Fox Creek Canal in north Detroit they pulled up a 57 Chevrolet with a skeleton in it. In Lake St. Clair off of Blossom Heath the old "speak easy" concrete blocks with human leg bones protruding were found.
I was at the Little Falls, NY wreck-site once and it was only marked with a concrete and bronze monument. I had Staufers book with an arial photograph taken of the train wreck the morning after it happened. The sight is overgrown and even lacks the famous Central four track main line, however, with the photos you can locate the exact spot NYC 5315 piled up. Given the size mass and speed of the wreck, weight of the rear truck, it should be fairly easy to approximate how far the truck could have gone out into the river. I bet its there not too far from that wreck site.
According to Staufer, it was one of the worst train wrecks NYC ever had - the engine and train went off the tracks on a curve and into a rock wall at speed. The Hudson was totally destroyed - it was the only one lost "in service" and unrepairable - the rear half of the cast steel frame broke loose and pivoted around the center driver and bent the drive rods, even the smoke stack casting was broken, as was the boiler shell in multiple places following an explosion that blew out the grates and firebox.
The surviving Hudson tender from NYC 5313 and the four wheel truck with booster NYC 5315 would make a cool foundation for a restored Hudson locomotive. Not much was left usable from NYC 5315 after the wreck so Central would just about have started the rebuild with the truck and tender. I am betting that booster engine would be hard to duplicate today as most were removed while the engines were still in service. I am also betting it will turn up someday, if some river scraper doesn't take it off for the steel into some scrap heap.
Dr. D
THe trailing truck has not been found, at least from whatt I could find. It has likely sunk into the riverbed, and will never be found. But I sometimes love being proved wrong!
Have any other Hudson parts survived? (Bells, whistles, misculaneous parts)
Probably bit late to jump in here, anyway, more than tenders were shared among locomotives of a particular class. Drivers, rods and other parts were, depending on the need to get a locomotive out of the shop. Work back-ups in the machine shop could cause parts to go from one locomotive to another to get the repairs done.
I think New York Central Hudsons were kind of famous for showing up with mismatched drive wheels. Considering there were 275 of these locomotives there were lots of parts to interchange.
When I was working on the left hand side rods for PM 1225 I noticed that the Baker valve gear eccentric rod was marked for I believe 1206 stamped half way between the ends on the back side of the rod. I remember being surprised how light weight the rod was - not too difficult for a young guy to pick up and wave around.
Speaking of parts does anyone know if the NYC 5315 Hudson four wheel trailing truck was ever found? NYC 5315 was destroyed in the wreck at Little Falls NY April 15th, 1940. The newspaper accounts of the wreck say the rear truck disapeared in the accident and it was assumed by NYC that it had gone into the Hudson River. Might still be there for all I know.
ICC report of the wreck and its details are available on the internet.
I noticed the 4006 had a tender marked as a 25000 gal on the rear. The first series were delivered with a 24000 gal tender so this one must have been switched with one of the second series 4020 to 4024. If the marking is correct, this is a tender from the second series. There is a slight increase in the height of the water compartment for the 25000 gal tanks compared to the original 24000 gal tenders.
RR
Thanks! I'll go check it out and officiate it. The other guys here at MOT will be glad to hear a final answer on this!
When constructed many CP steam locomotive tenders on more-modern engines, after c. 1925?? had a small cast tender builders plate on the tender frame, the number of which corresponded with the locomotive road number.
These appear on eBay from time to time.
Thru shoppings, tenders were mixed and did not always stay with their original locomoitve, the 'new' engine number then having to stencilled on the tank rear along with fuel/water capacity.
CNR locomotive tenders had brackets on the rear of the tender tank into which a standard-size metal plate could be slid bearing the engine number of the locomotived presently coupled to the other end.
In the fifties near the end of steam, CNR converted many coal burners to oil for use out West, and rather than install a custom-fit oil tank into the space for coal, another 'oil' tender from a scrapped oil burner would often be used instead.
Several of the converted-to-oil locomotives never turned a wheel and were scrapped.
Tender tanks were often placed on flat cars after the Diesels came, and used as water cars, the slide-in metal plate still on the rear, it's locomotive numerals visible thru the red MoW paint.
Many vanderbilt tenders/water cars, painted silver lasted into the eighties on work trains and steel gangs.
After steam was long scrapped, there were tracks of tenders awaiting various uses.
One of my duties was to fill water cars, often old 6000 gallon tank cars with a platform where the dome once was, to be used behind a regular tender on a steam engine for more water capacity, allowing the engine to travel further between water tanks.
Often the water car to be filled was a tender with kit bashed footboards and a hand brake on the engine end, one example still full of coal, the stoker auger just cut off with a torch.
Another was still limed out in the passenger livery and spotless.
It took all weekend to fill a tender with a garden hose for Monday's North Wyft.
Some engines for branch line use would get a 8-wheel tender to fit the turntable at the other end when other engines of the same class would have a longer 12-wheel one.
One 4-6-0, CP 911, received a oil tender from a larger locomotive so it could run the whole subdivision South from Golden on one tank of oil.
Two trains a week = low priority.
After the Diesels came, account light bridges, MLW S4 539s were used.
I am presuming that tenders were marked like other rolling stock. The original car number would be stamped/engraved right into one of the main truck bolsters. The heavy beam that runs from side to side on the car where the truck is fastened to. It is not on a plate that could be painted over or could fall off. You still might need some kind of wire brush to scrape away decades of grease and dirt if you find any promising locations.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Tender swapping is no big deal. DPM pointed out in "Second Section" many years ago of the builder's photo of an Erie 0-8-0 with a road tender, obviously not intended to stay with that locomotive. When Alco built its last steam locomotives, a batch of A-2 2-8-4's for P&LE, it contracted out the building of the tenders to Lima.
One thing is for sure, I will be ALL over that tender next week, looking for stamps and plates.
I have no idea about this, but I would assume there would be something like a builders plate that would have date built, maybe a serial number, and possibly the locomotive number.
S. Connor eagle1030 I remember a picture on railpictures of one of 4014's driver bearings that was originally stamped for 4002. Some of them were still marked 4002, while others had stamped over the 02 with 14. Don't know if there's anything like that 4006's tender, but you never know. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=459048&nseq=75 Thanks!!! I will sure check this one out!!! But of course, the 4006 was recently painted this past winter, and chances are that this was painted over, if it was on the exterior....
eagle1030 I remember a picture on railpictures of one of 4014's driver bearings that was originally stamped for 4002. Some of them were still marked 4002, while others had stamped over the 02 with 14. Don't know if there's anything like that 4006's tender, but you never know. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=459048&nseq=75
I remember a picture on railpictures of one of 4014's driver bearings that was originally stamped for 4002. Some of them were still marked 4002, while others had stamped over the 02 with 14. Don't know if there's anything like that 4006's tender, but you never know.
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=459048&nseq=75
Thanks!!! I will sure check this one out!!! But of course, the 4006 was recently painted this past winter, and chances are that this was painted over, if it was on the exterior....
4006 has been painted many times. If the stamps were covered by paint, it was done long ago.
Maybe if it's on the chassis of the tender?
Leo_Ames If it has no marks that you've located, what sort of evidence could you have found to suggest that it isn't the tender that it originally was paired with when it left Alco?
If it has no marks that you've located, what sort of evidence could you have found to suggest that it isn't the tender that it originally was paired with when it left Alco?
I was not the one to find this out, and I'm not sure how they discovered it, but it was one of the older volunteers who told me... I will ask next time I am there.
Any time a locomotive was sitting in a shop, it wasn't making money. Thus, shops had an incentive to quickly fix the locomotives and send them back on the road. I would assume that they grabbed the first ready parts (or the first ready tender) to facilitate faster servicing.
I seriously doubt that tenders were expected to stay with the locomotive they were connected to when built. Just look at, "As built," photos of USRA locos with those dinky 4-axle tenders, and compare them with, "In service," photos of the same locos with much larger tenders on Buckeye or Commonwealth 6-wheel trucks.
I can envision the following scenario. #4006 is shopped for a major overhaul. #40?? has some kind of problem resulting in non-fatal tender damage. Quick fix is to give the serviceable tender from #4006 to #40?? and repair the damaged one while #4006 is partially disassembled in the backshop.
I recall reading that tenders wear out and are replaced while the engine and boiler carry on. Toward the end of their lives a lot of N&W 2-8-8-2s were trailed by tenders from scrapped RF&P 4-8-4s that N&W bought cheap.
Chuck
Over here at St. Louis Museum of Transportation, our latest story develops, some of us volunteers have found evidence that our Big Boy, number 4006, does not have her original tender. It was not uncommon for tenders to sometimes be switched between locomotives, for whatever reason may have come up; However, we cannot find any marks on the tender to identify which locomotive the tender originates from.
Does anyone know where on the tender, an identifying mark could be found, such as a serial number, or order number? Or were the tenders made without such marks, and expected to stay with the locomotive?
Thanks for the help!
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