Christmas morning 1950 when I was 6, I was invited to a neighbor's home. I was taken into one of the rooms. There it was, a layout of Lionel trains. There were three loops of track. Each loop had a different steam locomotive. On the outside loop was a 773, the middle loop had a 736 and the inner loop had a 675. Wow three steam locomotives all smoking and with their whistle's blowing. Earlier the next year I invited back to my friend's home to see the trains again. To my surprise there were 2 of each locomotive double headed on each loop of track. Two 773s, two 736s and a two 675s. My friend's father told me that he had drilled holes just behind the front of three of the locomotives so that he could attached couplers and double head the three locomotives sets.
Fast forward to 2019. At Tom's Trains located in Ardsley, NY there were four 736s for sale. One of the 736s ( vintage 1950) had with it a 2426W metal tender with the metal whistle housing. Tom said that he purchased it that way. I had purchased a 736 (1953-54 vintage) many yeas ago and I had acquired a 2426W tender with the same metal housing some time later. As the 736 and the 2426W look so right together I decided to purchase this second set of this 736 and 2426W tender. Just before this past Christmas I decided to try and duplicate what my friend's father had done in the early 1950s but I didn't want to do any drilling on the pilot of one of my 736s so I took a piece of wire and wrapped it around the drawbar behind the coupler of the lead tender and wrapped the other end of wire around the pilot truck of the second locomotive, Wow it worked. Now I have two 736s with two 2426W tenders double heading both smoking and whistling just like my friend's father (Victor Merrill) had done back in the 1950s in (good old) Brooklyn, NY. By the way I did and still call Victor Merrill my train father as he and I got along so great together when it came to trains. Victor passed in 1983 and his then wife (#3) sold me what ever trains were left after a family member of hers had taken all of the steam locomotives but he left all of the tenders. That family member it seems was not a train person as to take the locomotives but did not take any of the tenders.
Ed Gerson
