Looking for information on this tender. BCR acquired it shortly before CN took over.
Labeled 2860B.
Was to be used as a Canteen car for the Royal Hudson. Seen here at the N.Van steam shop.

I'm told it was off one of the last SP Cab Forwards. Under the paint it seems to be 7205?.

Would anyone know what engine this might have been off of..?
It's a big tender. Towers over the BC private car fleet.

Some research shows that the Southern Pacific had a rotary snow plow with the number 7205 back in 1957. Could this tender be from this out plow? During a rescue of a SP train up on donner pass, SP 7205 snow plow and SP 4245 (mallet) tried to pull a stuck train from the snow. (http://ctr.trains.com/railroad-referenc ... treamliner). This could be the tender from that rotary snow plow.

The only listing I can find for a tender numbered 2860B is the one currently at the Cranbrook Railway Museum, which actually WAS used with 2860 for quite some time. That tender was originally from CP 4-8-4 3100.

But this is definitely a different tender. In addition to the timeline problems this tender's front section is not raised nearly as high.

When were those pictures taken, and where is this tender located now?

I see it has a regular drawbar and knuckle coupler at the front end, could the 7205 be all or part of a subsequent number after it was converted for MOW service, and have nothing to do with the locomotive it originally came from?

That would be correct if the tender is from a Southern Pacific cab forward. Accroding to Harlan's book on SP cab forwards, the highest number used was 4294, the last AC-12, which is now in the California State Railway Museum at Sacramento. I doubt that SP had any steam locomotives numbered in the 7000's.

The Southern Pacific rostered tenders separate from locomotives and frequently exchanged tenders; and maintained record cards documenting assignments by both locomotives and tenders with dates on and off.

If assigned as a tender for a snow plow, wreck derrick, etc. it would be a four digit number with a letter (most likely "A") as the fifth character. Looking at the photo the numbers are not centered under the light indicating there should be one more character.

If no one shows up with additional information for this SP tender, perhaps the SP Historical & Technical Society and help you direct you and your inquiry to a source.

The photo's were taken at N.Van in the late 90's. When CN took over, the BCR steam program was dismantled. The tender went to the Squamish rail museum. It remained there for a while, until it was cut up and sold for scrap.....

Talked to a California railfan many years ago, who said it was off a Cab Forward that had been in a wreck and the engineer had died. I had discounted his information, but maybe it being used as MOW equipment, was not too far wrong. It's use behind a snowplow, would fit the narrative.

Definitely not the one sent to Cranbrook.

Dennis.

Further research reveals that the SP rotary once numbered 7205 (later renumbered SPMW 205) was donated to the California State Railroad Museum in 2005. It had been rebuilt and converted to electric power in 1958 with power supplied by a trailing locomotive (EMD F-unit), so it likely lost its tender at that time.

A number of SP rotary plows did receive tenders from retired cab-forwards in the early 1950s, after the infamous City of San Francisco stranding on Donner Pass (one of the rotaries sent to rescue the train ran out of fuel in the process).

If this was the tender used with 7205/205 in the 1950s and it was separated from the rotary in 1958, I wonder how it managed to survive until the early 2000s?

SD70dude

Good info. This is making sense.
Haven't confirmed it yet, but I'm given to believe the 4449 group at Portland, may have had a hand in this. Accounting for it's longevity.

WCRA in Squamish needed money about 10 years ago so they scrapped it. And no it wasn't offered to other organizations prior to being cut up.

If the 4449 group had something to do with it, that still begs the question of how it survived from 1958 to around 1975. They do have the tender from 4219.

This may shed some light:

The Auxiliary tender was from SP cab Forward #4219 and had actually been with that locomotive thru its entire life, which was very unusual. After the engine was scrapped the tender was used with Rotary snow plow #206 and became SPMW 7206. When the rotary was converted to electric drive the tender was relegated to water service as #SPMW 4764A with another steam loco tender #SPMW 4764. They were used on the Cascade line out of Eugene for many years. SP donated them to the NRHS and one was converted to the auxiliary water car and had work done to it so it would conform closely with 4449s own tender. This info was gathered for my program on SP 4449 for the SPH&TS convention in Portland, Oregon in 2000. Tom Dill was kind enough to loan me a photo of the 4219 for the program and I already had photos of the two SPMW tenders in water service taken in Eugene and on the hill. Have a shot of the tender in Eugene on my other computer and will add it here tomorrow.

Following up on that I found this:

This auxiliary water car was built in 1942 by Baldwin as the tender for SP Class AC-10 4-8-8-2 Cab Forward #4219, 1 of 40 such engines (#4205-#4244) in that Class, which were built between January and July 1942. After the #4219 was retired, its tender was reassigned to rotary snowplow #206 as SPMW #7206B, and later became water car SPMW #4764A. #4764A, along with water car #4764, was assigned to the Natron Cutoff (Cascade Summit) and based in Eugene. SP donated both water cars, with the #4764A becoming DLMX #4219 in time for the 1984 WORLDS FAIR DAYLIGHT to New Orleans; the #4764 was sold to the CP #2860 group. For more info, see this Trainorders thread: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/r ... 10,2963816 EXIF: 3:44 PM, f/4.1 @ 1/125, ISO-100

I remember that tender kicking around Squamish a number of years ago, scrapped since. When BCR was closing down a number of things would end up on the museum property overnight it seems from the stories I have been told.

There is still one more tender left behind, but its from a CP 2300

SD70dude
Here's an interesting shot. The 'other' 2860B tender you mentioned.
25 Feb 1991. North Van.
Note the front wheel sets have been removed, and the truck frame is sitting on wood blocks.
Wonder if that was prep work for the run to Cranbrook.? Will have to ask some knowledgable people.
BTW, I see what you mean.
If you remove the oil bunker, at first glance, the two tenders are very similar.

BCR4619
That's exactly how it was.
CN had made it more than plain, they had no interest at all in the steam program.
The word "hostile" would not be incorrect.
So the rush was on to save the collection before the scrappers arrived.

Thank you all, for this information.
Greatly appreciated.

You could see it from Space.....well a Cessna 172, anyway.

A matching shot for the other ones.
Shows the Steam Shop, next to the N.Van Station.
And 3716 coupled to the BCR Executive Car fleet.

Dennis.