If the tender still has the small brass tag stamped with a number and the letters "VA" I have the tender records to look up what engine it was assigned too. It will have been used behind more than one locomotive in it's life time.

Kevin K.

I seem to remember the tender from #543 sitting on a siding in southern Ohio. Somewhere I have photos.

Kevin K.

With its current tender, 1309 is one foot shy of the ends of the rails on each end of the Frostburg turntable if perfectly centered.

The Locust Point C&O tender appears to be about eight to ten feet longer--and remember, I've seen both in person innumerable times..

Make of that what you will.

Hi
Maybe someone from the C&O Historical Society might have some information dealing with the tender?

Kevin, I would be interested in seeing those photos and possibly knowing a bit more about the fate of the 543's tender?

Robert

Well, here are some diagrams from "Steam Locomotive Diagrams of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad," originally published by Alvin F. Staufer, and later republished by Leonard Buonocore.

The first diagram is of a typical C&O H-6 from the 1920s. This one has a 12,000 gallon Vanderbilt tender. Disregard the "number in class" notation; in this case, it refers to the number of H-6 2-6-6-2s of this particular configuration and weight distribution, not the total number of engines in class H-6.



The second diagram is the only one in the book with a 16,000 gallon Vanderbilt tender with a 2-6-6-2. The engine is the 1470, the lone H-4a on the roster, an experimental rebuilding of a compound Mallet to simple operation. Not entirely successful, she was outlasted by many of her conventional (compound) H-4 sisters (which had slide valves on the low pressure cylinders), but she provided information on what future simple articulateds might be like.



The third diagram is for the last H-6 2-6-6-2s built, series 1300-1309, Baldwin 1949, of which 1308 and 1309 survive--and the last two steam locomotives delivered from an American commercial builder to an American common carrier railroad.



Of note is how close the dimensions of these engines were in the development of C&O's Mallets from the delivery of the first one in class H in 1911 to the second-generation H-6 of 1949. (An exception would be the H-5, which was a USRA designed 2-6-6-2, which was a bit longer, but only by a couple of feet or so, and a total wheelbase with tender just under 91 feet.) Note that while the H-4a, with its long tender, is over 107 feet long over its couplers, its total wheelbase is only 95 feet, 6 inches--which would be tight, but would still fit on the 100-foot table at Frostburg.

The second generation H-6 does have a rear frame section that's 1 foot and 8 inches longer than that of the H-4a, and the resulting total wheelbase comes out to 97 feet, 3 inches. That's very tight, and a good deal of the engine will project beyond the turntable at both ends, but it's no worse than C&O turning an Allegheny on a 115 foot table (overall length 125 feet, 8 inches, wheelbase 113 feet).

Water and coal capacity for the 1309's class 12-RC tender is 12,000 gallons and 16 tons, while our (maybe) 16-VA in Baltimore was rated at 16,000 gallons and 24 tons.

(Bit of trivia--Ross Rowland's 614 has a class 22-RH tender that was rated, as built, for 22,000 gallons and 25 tons. Mr. Roland has altered the tender for more range when operated with auxiliary tanks, and the tender now holds 48 tons. The standard tender for all of the K-4s on this road (2-8-4s, 2700 series) was a 21-RG, 21,000 gallons, 30 tons.)

David, Thank you for the detailed drawings and information.

Robert