Many railroads in the steam era showed the locomotive engine number on the back of the tender usually along with capacity of the tender shown as XX tons of coal and XXXX gallons of water. This was usual, but certainly not universal.

Recently a friend of mine lent me his copy of THE LAST STEAM RAILROAD IN AMERICA with photgraphy by O. Winston Link. On page 25 of that excellent book is a photo of a N&W 0-8-0 taking water with 15 tons shown but also a number (90030) just above it. Then on page 36 is another shot of a N&W 0-8-0 (this one sitting in the Roanoke station) again with 15 tons lettered on the back of the tender with the number just above being 130030. This number is obviously not the engine number and highly unlikely the water capacity of the tender in gallons. It is true that some railroads gave their tenders a separate number from the engine for identification but I have never seen any showing that number in the location as in these two photos. There is also a color photo of class M 4-8-0 #429 (on page 80)in service on the Abingdon branch with what appears to be the same type of system although the lettering is just a bit too far from Links camera lens to determine what the numbers are.

Can anyone out there tell me what this number above the coal tonnage capacity represents? And did all N&W tenders carry it?

Thanks!

midlandblb@cs.com

According to "Rails Rememered", Volume 3, the first 2 numbers indicated the capacity of water in thousands of gallons. The other numbers represented the number of tenders of that particular class. Example, #130015 meant 13,000 gallons, and tender number 15 of that class.

Muss405@yahoo.com

Also consider the fact that N&W swapped a lot of tenders, particularly the final years. For example 578 received a tender off a Y I believe.
Also there were different 0-8-0's, the home built N&W ones, and the ones they bought second hand from the C&O. Many of the M's also got the larger tenders off either Y's or K's also. Don't have the particular facts on this, but your post indicates two different size tenders. In our movies of N&W one can see the larger tenders on some engines like I mentioned above. Hope that helps.
Greg Scholl

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Both 611 and 1218 carried these numbers in preservation. 611's tender was 220165 (also lettered for 35 tons and 20,000 gallons, though this could have been modified in 1981-82); I couldn't find a clear shot of the rear of 1218's tender, but the number ended in "105."

JAC

> Both 611 and 1218 carried these numbers in
> preservation. 611's tender was 220165 (also
> lettered for 35 tons and 20,000 gallons,
> though this could have been modified in
> 1981-82); I couldn't find a clear shot of
> the rear of 1218's tender, but the number
> ended in "105."

> JAC

Gentlemen:

THANK YOU!

midlandblb@cs.com