How common was it for the drawbar between steam locomotives and their tenders to break? I assume that may have been more common in the earlier periods such as pre-1900. I would think such a failure would pose immense peril to a fireman who happened to be down on the deck when an engine separated from its tender. Yet in reviewing lists of wrecks in the old Railroad Gazette, I have never encountered a mention of a fatality caused by the breaking of the engine / tender drawbar.

RTK

The drawbar on 4449 failed about 20 years ago during movie filming. As an oil burner with an all weather cab, it has no "deck".

There are safety chains as well, and the apron has some overlap, so a sudden failure might not drop the fireman between the engine and tender.

It was in 1984, in Texas, returning from New Orleans.

The plate holding the drawbar pin failed, and the pin fell out - the drawbar didn't fail. They found the parts and put everything back together. I don't recall if the hoses between the tender and loco were damaged or not, but 4449 did not require a diesel "rescue."

JAC

I do recall seeing a news photo of that drawbar failure on 4449. I had not thought about the safety chains. Were safety chains always used in engine / tender drawbar connections or were they introduced somewhere along the way?

On two different occassions, I have found pieces of what I assume to be broken engine / tender drawbars that would date from pre-1902. Oddly enough, both finds were within 500 feet of each other. This was on a grade where break-in-twos were common, but it got me to thinking about the probability of the breaking of the extra heavy engine / tender link versus the breaking of a weaker car link right behind the tender.

Were the 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 engines of the 1880-1900 period universally equipped with drawbar safety chains between the engine and tender?

RTK

I have seen old 4-4-0's on display with safety chains. Various drawings in White's The American Locomotive do not show them.

To add a bit more on the 4449. As I recall not only did the plate holding the pin in come out it was a smaller piece, a keeper bolt or pin that allowed the plate to leave. And yes both water hoses and the fuel line parted. As I understand the down time was around an hour which under the circumstances is amazing when you think of what had to be done to get rolling again.

And I am not aware of any safety chains on the modern engines. I know that most have two drawbars though one of which is a safety bar in case of a break on the main bar.

Many locomotives had a second drawbar called a safety bar that I assume took the place of safety chains. In order to have a drawbar failure you really had to have two drawbars fail. Keep in mind also that drawbars must be inspected either by magnaflux or hammer test on a regular basis. Combined these two items greatly reduced the possibly of drawbar failure.

John Bohon

Our SP 10-wheeler (Baldwin, 1912) actually has two "safey" draw-bars. The main draw-bar, is, of course, on the center line of the engine and tender. The safety bars are smaller than the main one, and are located on each side of the main one.

The present tender is not the original one; it is from a larger locomotive, and was added in the 1940's. The pockets for the draw-bar pins do not appear to have been added, so I'd guess that the original tender had the same set-up.