I was always wondering about this particular tender for years now and thought I bring up the subject again. Anyone have any facts or what engine did this tender belong to?

Can you supply a photograph? That might help with identifying the tender and perhaps the type of locomotive it ran with.

Do keep in mind, though, that tender swapping was very common on multiple roads.

I believe the tender is from an S2 4-8-4. Left behind when services were discontinued. There’s a photo of it from 1980 so it must’ve been before that

The number on the side is 905208 I believe, it’s hard to tell because of photo quality and painting of those numbers. That might help in identifying the car.

The Milwaukee Public Library has the CMStP&P equipment cards. Send them the car number and they can look it up.

The tender in question is from a S2 and is the last surviving piece from the Milw S2 4-8-4 class. The town used the tender as their water tank for many years. The tender deck has several large holes in it and is overall pretty rusted out. There is a photo floating around on the web of the tender in tow in a Milw freight train heading for Ingomar MT.

Robert

It has been some time. Anyone got any details? Im in no rush take your time. Sometimes I wish the locomotive itself was preserved along with the tender. But thats me wishing.

Does it have roller bearing trucks?

Based on the photos I could find, it looks like it would be on plain bearings. There is a possibility--probably very remote--it was altered during its service as something else, like a work train tender.

https://donsdepot.donrossgroup.net/dr541.htm

Per the MILW group at groups.io, the tender is from an S2 and, in 1980, was dropped off by the last eastbound Milwaukee Road freight through Ingomar to serve as the town's water storage tank. Despite all the discussion, no mention of which S2 it came from.

I did see in a reply the Milwaukee Public Library might have the answer. I can see if I can ask them.

To my knowledge, it was common practice to for many railroads to keep equipment to their original numbers, but if the equipment was repurposed, in this case Maintenace of Way, they'd add an 'X' followed by a three or four digit prefix number. Many repurposed tenders and water tanks on the MILW were in the X908 series. Considering this is X908208, more than likely the locomotive it came from was engine 208.

Recent photos of the tender just showed up on the ahead of the torch page on facebook page. I believe the tank MLW 261 runs around with is former N&W, so if they were ever looking for a more historically appropriate canteen car.....