I have been in the model railroad hobby since the mid 1970's. I will soon turn 61 and I wear tri-focal glasses. Is it age, eyesight or something else that leads me to believe that alot of even the premium steam locomotive sets have a tender that appears to be too small? I have two Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2 Mountain type locomotives where the tender looks like it should belong to a Consolidation. They(tenders) just seem out of proportion. The IHC Premier series seems to be the same, but the Premier Gold line looks perfectly proportioned-or is it my glasses. Need help.
Thanks
trainnut57 wrote: I have been in the model railroad hobby since the mid 1970's. I will soon turn 61 and I wear tri-focal glasses. Is it age, eyesight or something else that leads me to believe that alot of even the premium steam locomotive sets have a tender that appears to be too small? I have two Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2 Mountain type locomotives where the tender looks like it should belong to a Consolidation. They(tenders) just seem out of proportion. The IHC Premier series seems to be the same, but the Premier Gold line looks perfectly proportioned-or is it my glasses. Need help.Thanks
The tenders that come with the locos are pretty close to scale when compared to USRA drawings. You may look at them and think they're too small but that all comes do to your personal prefences or the preferences of the prototype that you model.
Then there's me who, on the other hand, thinks that anything longer than the USRA medium tender is too long and doesn't look "Canadian" enough. Fortunately, SteamGene (From the Bach Man Board) thinks the opposite and he likes the long USRA tender, which explains the odd tender swap crossing the International Border. Medium tenders heading North, long tenders heading south.
Not only do I swap tenders, I kitbash many of them to slightly change their shape either by shortening them and or convering them to 'clearview' tenders with recessed coal bunkers. All in an effort to make my locomotives look different from everyone elses.
Cheers
Roger T.
Home of the late Great Eastern Railway see: - http://www.greateasternrailway.com
For more photos of the late GER see: - http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/
I assume that the tenders are properly scaled to whatever drawings and photos the manufacturer used as references. The USRA 'original' tenders, especially, were miniscule, and were often replaced - some as early as the 1920s.
Just a few of the things that influenced tender size and design:
My own prototype had locos with very small tenders that were adequate for their short runs and frequent stops at stations with standpipes. The most powerful (tractive effort) steam that railroad ever ran was a tank loco, with just enough tank and bunker capacity for one hard push up a fairly short grade.
If a manufacturer sells a locomotive as a scale model, I assume that the tender is also an appropriate scale model until proven otherwise. OTOH, my sister once picked up an Italian (I think) 2-6-0t boxed together with a PRR slope-back switcher tender - part of a garage sale deal. The name of the distributor is being withheld to protect the guilty.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with accurately scaled tenders)
Well I've been modelling since the early seventies, but I'm only 49 so only need bifocals (so far)!!
I think it's possible that tenders on earlier models were oversized, the way Athearn GP bodies were wider than the prototype back when they first came out, to allow their large motor to fit inside...or it could be just that we got used to running Mantua 2-8-2's and 4-6-2's with those HUGE 12-wheel 'long haul' tenders, so now when we get say a LL or Spectrum engine with an accurate smallish tender, it looks too small to our eyes.
If you want a BIG locomotive with a SMALL tender that's prototypical, you need look no further than Rio Grande's 1400 series 2-10-2's, delivered to the railroad in 1917 by ALCO. These big behemoths, with a TE of 81,000 lbs, had a little-teeny Vanderbuilt tender that looked as if it belonged behind a Consolidation or a Ten-Wheeler. Later in their life, they recieved some larger tenders from scrapped ex-N&W 2-8-8-2's, but several of these locos carried their little bitty tender throughout their entire operating life (the last ones were scrapped in 1956).
Here's a photo of my PSC F-81 with her teeny-tiny little Vandy tender. Now I ask you, isn't that something ELSE, LOL?
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I have an IHC 4-8-2 steamer in Canadian National colors that came with a generic Vanderbilt tender, it was too long when compared to the prototype. I shortened the tender about one inch which made it look more like the prototype.
Bob Boudreau
CANADA
Visit my model railroad photography website: http://sites.google.com/site/railphotog/
Actually the IHC "Vanderbilt" tender is fairly inaccurate in that it has a huge front end designed to fit the motor - I'm not sure if they still are, but many IHC models originally had the motor in the tender.
If you compare the IHC tender to a real Vandy you'll see what I mean.
Railphotog wrote: I have an IHC 4-8-2 steamer in Canadian National colors that came with a generic Vanderbilt tender, it was too long when compared to the prototype. I shortened the tender about one inch which made it look more like the prototype.
Like I did a similar kitbash to three of the "President's Choice" (aka IHC) 2-10-2. Excellent locomotive that is more accurate than the IHC version as the PC one comes with matching Elesco feedwater heater and pump whereas these are mismatched on the IHC model.
In place of the IHC tender, I used the Bachmann "Hicken" oil tender that I converted to coal, shortened by one water tank course and modified the front end to match the new vestibule cab. The tenders that came with the PC/IHC locos were that long, ugly looking IHC thing, they ended up being stripped of any usable parts and the bodies scrapped.
I'm considering converting all three locos into 2-10-4s as I'm not entirely happy with that large empty space under the cab.
Roger--
That's a nice-looking kit-bash on that IHC 2-10-2. I especially like the Hicken tender you did behind it. You're right, with that all-weather cab, a 4-wheel trailing truck would fill out that space really nicely.
But I sure like what you did.
One of the reasons the Southern Pacific is my favorite railroad is because of the wide variety of locomotive tenders (rectangular, cylindrical, semi-cylindrical, and all of various sizes and variations within each type) and to the great extent it swapped tenders among locomotives. The swapping was especially true of the older locomotives being given tenders that originally came with much larger and less aged (but often less useful) locomotives. Here is one of thousands of examples: in the mid-twentieth century one could see a turn-of-the-century Mogul (M-6) being assigned a tender (120-SC) from a large articulated locomotive that dominates the locomotive.
Mark
Mark--
Didn't some of the Consolidations recieve tenders from early articulateds? I have a Sunset SP 2-8-0 with one of those tenders, and have always wondered whether it was original with the locomotive or not. I know SP did a LOT of swapping--I've got an ex-B&M 2-8-4 with one of those strange looking tenders also--was it called a "Whaleback", or am I thinking of Santa Fe? I even have a photograph of an ex-EP&SW MT-2 with a Vanderbuilt, and I didn't think that EVER happened!
Tom, while rare for Moguls, a number of SP Consolidations received whaleback tenders that came from the early articulateds, as did some Mikados. The former B&M Berkshires that were converted to oil fuel (after operating in coal-fired SP territory) for operation in California for the last year or so of their useful lives also received whalebacks too. I consider myself fortunate to have models of one of each of the above examples, except for the Mogul Nevertheless, I have a spare whaleback I may swap with the Mogul's ungainly-looking (too skinny) Vanderbilt.
I forgot to mention I've seen photographs (they seem rare) of a Mountain type as well as a Santa-Fe type (Decapod in SP-speak) locomotive with swapped whaleback tenders too.
if the engine ran on a line that needed only a short haul, the tender didnt need to be huge, but like 4-6-6-4's, big boys the centipedes were needed, prr had some huge tenders, N&W often had water tenders.