Lionel tinplate 800 series and 650 series. No tender cars?

Tender comes with locomotive.

@Mannyrock, I highly recommend you get ahold of the books I recommend to you previously in your other threads.

Additionally, for finding matching locomotives and tenders, I'd recommend you paw through the prewar catalogs.to see the sets Lionel has made up. They are currently available in digital form to LCCA members via their digital archive. If that is not your cup of tea, you can look through "Guide to Catalogued Sets of Lionel Trains 1917-1969" by T. Hood Simpson. It is a great book full of textual indexes (no pictures) that allows one to piece together set compositions.

Just an example showing some locomotives:

I will second bmoran4's comments - there are a number of tenders and tender variations and you will need reference material in order to understand which tender can be expected to be found with which engine.

  I don't know anything about LCCA but based on what bmoran4 said, even a 1 year membership sounds like a real bargain. Since they have these catalogs on line you can use the snipping tool and save out the images of engines and tenders, along with your personal annotation on your computer.  In the meantime, below are pictures of four of the more common tinplate Lionel tenders (and some of the engines with which they are associated).

Tender 257T

Tender 262T

Tender 260T (12 wheel version)

Tender 1689T- gunmetal

Thanks for all of the info.

I know that this is heresy, but I will not be hauling my tinplate cars with a tinplate engine.  I will be using short 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 steamers, with modern can motors.  I think they will really look nice with these 1920s and 30s cars.

I started out earlier this year, collecting a string of the short Marx tinplate cars, and there seemed to be lots of tenders around for those, at the flea markets etc.     Sorry to hear tenders weren't made as part of each Lionel series.

But, the 260T and 262T look great, and I will pursue those.

Thanks again,

Mannyrock

@Mannyrock, you will not likely be able to use a prewar tender with a postwar or newer engine as the tender drawbars are likely to be incompatible without some sacrilegious modifications.

Thanks for the info Moran.

What I would typically do is to look for a tender that is really in bad shape, non-collectible, kinda trashed, and then rehab and repaint it, and make the sacrilegious modification.  I would never alter anything that was in VG or better condition and ruin its value.   This is how I am able to tow my Marx tinplate train of cars behind my modern engines.

I see a Lionel 262T tender on the bay right now, that is really trashed, for around $24.   This is the type of thing I would go for.

I am running the trains just for the sheer fun of it, and so I am not a purist about what I run.  (I'm too old to be a purist.  :-)  )

But I certainly respect folks who are purists and preserve this history for the future.

Best,

Mannyrock

Just more so wanted to make sure you realized that they would not mate right up. Sounds like you know what you are signing up for!

@Mannyrock the common way to mix and match prewar latch couplers with knuckle couplers is to make a transition car.  Same things as what you are talking about with an rotted tender.  And they're your trains, the only sacrilege would be not enjoying them.