Who built coal tenders? were they built by locomotive manufacturers or independent makers? It would make more sense to have a private tender factory to make the various types of tenders for each railroad.(mass production etc etc) anyone know???
I can’t think of any locomotive builder who didn’t also build the tender as they were considered parts of the same unit. Procedures varied from builder to builder, but I believe most tenders were built in a separate shop so as to not waste valuable space on the erecting room floor.
Sometimes a railroad might receive an order of tenders. I recall C&O getting some tenders to enlarge capacity on existing engines; forgot which locomotive builder supplied them. I also seem to recall some railroad getting outlandishly large tenders with new switchers, to be swapped with the tenders on existing units.
Thoughout the age of steam, locomotives were essentially custom designed and built, except for a brief period during World War I. With the end of the USRA, railroads reverted to their old ways. Crafted rather than manufactured is the appropriate term when describing steam locomotives. Thus the building of tenders was never amenable to economies of scale. Splitting an order just would have unncessarily complicated the acquisition of new locomotives. Besides that, what company in its right mind would have gotten into tender construction knowing that they would have at the mercy of the locomotive builder? The only case that I know of where the locomotive and tender were built by different manufacturers was for NYC’s class A2 2-8-4s. These were the very last locomotives that Alco built. Before they could construct the tenders the plant had shut down so Lima built the tenders.
Baldwin built Erie switcher:
The switchers were built with large tenders intended to be swapped with road locomotives.
There ya go! Thanks, Eastside!
Makes sense, but what did they put on the switchers?? was it a matter of getting larger tenders for the other locomotives??? So a few switchers would have a variety of different tenders–right? Am I on the right track??? This explains these strange photos of monster tenders for tooling around the yard.
Generally the builder did the engine and the tender, because both had to be to the railroad specifications. Sometimes factors like turntable length came into it. I know Missabe 2-8-8-2’s had small four-axle tenders because so the engine would fit on the turntables they had. After WW2 the Missabe added tankcars converted to water cars to use on mainline runs with the engines to improve their range.
Similarly the Soo Line’s 4-8-4’s had pretty small tenders due to turntable restrictions. On the New York Central, they had 4-8-4’s built with centipede tenders with the wheels shifted towards the front, so there was an overhang at the rear of maybe 6’ or more so that the engine could fit on the turntable at Harmon and other places. (There’s a good pic of one of those engines just fitting on a turntable in the current NYC Hist.Soc. newsletter.)
Plus of course, did you want to burn coal or oil - and how much capacity of fuel vs. water?? The ATSF liked tenders with big water capacity for running thru the desert. That wasn’t a problem for eastern and midwestern railroads where water tanks were plentiful.
Most likely the Erie wanted to extend the range of some of their road locomotives and they needed new switchers. What better way to save money than to order the new switchers with the tenders they needed and recycle the old tenders by mating them with the new switchers? I doubt that the new switchers operated very long with the supplied long-distance tenders.
Erie heavy Pacific with tender:
This K5-A has exactly the same type of tender if not the very tender from the switcher above.