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IN GENERAL: <br /> <br />1. being that water is heavy, you wanna lower its center of gravity. <br />2. water was placed behind the fuel because water will flow to you, the coal or wood wouldnt. <br />3. most water pumps i know of on steamers were gravity fed. the pump itself on the loco not tender. and always lower than the tender floor. <br /> <br />VANDY vs. RECTANGULAR: <br /> <br />1. is it the term bracing? or splash plates? which ever the factory calls it, there has never been in my travels enough of both in a rectanguler tender to lessen its capacity moreso than what a vandy can carry ( of equal size ). another reason is im sure vandys had them too! slosh is slosh no matter what the capacity or shape of tender. <br /> <br />2. we all know railroads through history have always pinched every penny. if vandies were cheaper ( less structural bracing = less money spent on steal not needed, less metal = less weight of tender for more load to pull etc etc ), then why didnt they dominate the rails? <br /> <br />3. heres one that will drop your highballs, a vandy, to keep its circumferance true can only get so great in diameter as to not interfere with clearances etc. Same holds true for a rectangular, they both can only be so wide. but the rectangular will gain in surface area because of the extra area inherant in its four corner design. EVEN WITH BRACING! <br />and say for a vandy and rectangular of equal length ( say for turntable purposes) the vandy would lose again in its ability to keep a true circumferance, meet width clearances while gaining in height as can a rectangular. Frankly, with all the facts, for two equal size tenders of diff type, youd have to stretch the vandy out untill it looked rectangular before it could hold the same gallons. <br /> <br />4. To think that a vandy could haul more coal or oil because it was a vandy simply isnt the case. Water was the primary need for a loco. true the fuels are lighter ( barely ), but now you need more space to store more. well that defeats the whole idea of making the tender lighter in weight because now your gaining it back using extra metal for a bigger bunker. And remember, fuel mileage always seemed to get better, but the water mileage didnt. This would be true for both tender types. <br /> <br />TRIVIA FACT: <br /> <br />1. A rectangular object is harder to roll over from sloshing water than a cylinderical object. ( side to side slosh ) There are many ways to explain this, heres the easiest.... <br />a 2' cube half full of water, center of gravity is 1'. a 2' diameter 2' long cylinder half full of water, center of gravity 1'. both are equal right? well you know they arent. the cube has more surface area on the bottom than does the cylinder. thus more water below center of gravity thus less chance of rolling. ( some call this lowering the center of gravity ) and no, there were no slosh plates! <br /> <br /> <br />now we know the steel rail jockeys didnt go whippin round corners, they did reach high speeds on occasion though. and splash plates were invented for a reason! Vandy vs Rectangle is as old as Big Boy vs Allegheny. how ironic neither titan had a vandy! <br />makes ya wonder why tank cars are round huh! The study of tenders alone could take a life time. And true there has to be a reason for the vandy. comparability wasnt one of them. Steve, if ya wanna see some wild tenders take a look at the Pennsy Long Haulers. Or even a tank engine. sometimes called shop goats. They have fascinating tenders! <br /> <br />Sincerely, <br /> <br />Power at Speed <br />
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