Richard - I don't know how things were in the US, but up in Canuckistan, all the 'shiny parts' such as bells, whistles, number boards and builders plates were stripped off before the locos got cut to bits and were either kept by the Company for later disposal or were picked off by railfans who flipped the security guards a bottle of hooch to 'look the other way'. As a matter of fact, both CN and CP had active programs at the time where they would donate steam locomotive bells to churches for use in their belfries. Most are still up there and I personally know of at least a dozen just around my Province. There are PLENTY of churches all across Canada who's congregation have no idea they get serenaded by the sweet tone of a long dead CPR or CNR steamer's bell every Sunday.

73, RwC

RwC -

That happened in the U.S. too. My son-in-law was the pastor at a church "out in the country" that had a free standing outside bell tower. I told him the bell was off of a steam locomotive but not sure if he was convinced. Anyway, one day I climbed up the steel work and found a number stamped into the top of the bell...1875. The neighboring railroad was the L&N. Number 1875 was the number of one of their big 2-8-2's!

Les

Hi Mark,

Missed your message til now. The tender in question is along the abandoned C&NW "KD" line, on the north edge of Silver Lake, WI, adjacent to the mobile home park. Google maps now shows the ROW as the Silver Lake Icehouse Trail. When we were there the cistern was pretty evident, half buried at the bottom the north side of the embankment; the area around it pretty much denuded of vegetation by the local kids playing on the "hill".

Phil, who is quite interested in the history of the KD line, came up with an account of a wreck; a local freight stopped and cut his train off to switch the ice house spur maybe 1/8 mile ahead. When returning to the train the engineer apparently got lost in conditions of poor visibility, and struck the standing train at a good clip. The collision was hard enough that the engine telescoped the tender; the tank as it sits today has the water legs splayed out like a V. This was a small, old time tank with the decorative angled flange around the top, and was likely considered obsolete ever then, so was just left, as it was well clear of the track. We saw it maybe thirty years ago; I wonder if it is still there?

Hey Torch ,
Phil and I also took a look at it around that time and yes , it was an old little tender .

S.C.U.B.A. diving is another of my hobbies. I have dived on train wrecks at Salt Point in Seneca Lake, New York, and in the Delaware River at Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania. There is a boxcar with roof walk at each site. The Gap also has roller bearing trucks from a newer wreck.