What is this?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Can someone tell me what the structure is on top of the tender?

Its long, narrow and boxy. It appears to be made of wood. It has doors on the top (through which the coal is being loaded). Since it appears to be winter (note the “curtains” on the cab) I can only guess that it is a cover to prevent snow/ice/water/ from getting mixed in with the coal and making it harder to shovel.

Also, if anyone knows the approximate date when the coal dock in Skagway was removed. That info would be a great help to me.

-George

2

I’ve never seen anything like this, but it may have been a cheap way of increasing the capacity of the tender’s coal bunker.

3

note its the white pass and yukon in Alaska, its narrow gauge 3 ft. cold hard winters, sounds like the best idea to keep the weather out of the coal. you dont want to throw snow along with your coal, thats wrong for the fire.

4

That looks like an older wood burning loco, could they have added the wooden box for coal ???

5

I think what that box is for is to prevent snow from entering and mixing with the coal. It also may prevent(this mostly happens in spring) Ice wedgeing(this is what causes pot-holes). What happens is water goes into the tender mixes with the coal, and overnight freezes, and ta-da, you have a solid chunck of ice-coal. Also over time this would put stress on the tender, leading to a repair.

6

That’s exactly what it’s for.

7

Thanks, all. It nice to know that my thinking was pretty much right on track.

-George

8

My take on this is that the loco was once a wood burner, converted for coal. The side boards were added for higher capacity of coal and yes, it does have a fold up-down canvas top to keep water-snow out of the coal. Some locos in the north had steam running through the tender to keep the coal and water from freezing in the winter time. Even today, dump trucks (some) have double walled dump beds and run the truck’s exhaust through them for the same purpose. Ken

9

The White Pass was a coal-burning road from the start, none of their locos were wood burners in WP&Y service. Photos show they burned fairly poor quality coal with lots of fines, so covering it to keep it from freezing would be a sensible course of action. The wooden extensions on the coal bunker - “hungry boards” - are typical of roads burning poor quality or slack coal. These extensions would not have been tall enough to increase the tender’s capacity by a worthwhile amount if burning wood. Extensions on woodburners are more commonly made up of flat bar, to give an tall, open rack-style structure.