i’ve been on the lookout for an 8209t for quite a while now, but i haven’t had any luck, so i decided to make my own. i’ve noticed a lot of those cheap plastic train sets you see around this time of year are o gauge, and tend to have tiny 4 wheeled rolling stock, most of its junk in my opinion, but the tenders looked just perfect for what i wanted. being they are so cheap, i picked up 2 different sets. 
naturally the couplers were wrong, the wheels were cheap, and the stickers were tacky, but it was relatively simple to make them into something decent.
the western express tender clipped together and the tabs were glued at the bottom, however the coal load also clipped in place and had no glue. with a little coaxing i was able to pop it loose and, as i had hoped, found the tender completely hollow allowing me to work from the top. the consummate was held together with a single screw through the bottom.
after that i set to work smoothing out the bottoms, to make room for the new coupler and draw bars to mount. all the parts i used were lionel, though i did end up using two different types of axles due to the way each tenders wheels mounted.
i also removed the buffers on the cars, one was made of plastic so brittle they just snapped off! i test fitted some wheels, i ended up using mpc era metal wheels and axles, one set were needle. and i did have to shorten the ends just a hair for those to work. after that i drilled my holes and bolted on the new couplers. amazingly enough, i had 2 identical couplers that were the perfect height in my parts bin, so i was able to get it all together without using any shims.
now i just needed to get the stickers and paint off, the stickers on the western were stubborn. i eventually soaked them in water and rubbed the paper off, following up with everclear and a cotton swab to remove the backing. the other tender was as easy as they come. as soon as i got a corner lifted, the stickers came right off. to get the gold paint off i, again used everclear, this time with q tips. interestingly, the paint was actually silver, top coated with a semi-transparent orangish color applied over it.
reassembly was a snap of course, and the final products looks right at home with my smaller postwar and mpc locomotives. in truth, i think they look better than the 8209t and are certainly more detailed. i really wish i had a k-line porter right now! sense i don’t though, here’s the western tender with my 8300 and the other with one of my marx 198s.
so, that’s what i did today. i just thought i’d put it out there in case anyone else has had trouble finding small tenders to match their small steamers. for whatever reason, the slope backs just never “looked” right to me. overall i think i spent about 40$ for the 2 train sets and a pair of draw bars. they seem to work good, although i may add some weight to them.
