TANK ENGINES: I SAY WHAT?

I always called 'em "Saddle-Tankers." Don't know where docksider came from because there were some pretty big saddle-tank engines built.

"One of the most famous tanker engines was the "Little Joe", 0-6-0T used by B&O on Pratt Street Line in downtown Baltimore until the GE 44 ton diesel came along."

Oh I don't know Charlie; I think this may be the most famous tanker engines!

My tank engine, which started life as a Rail Blazer (similar to the 8905 above) and at some point grew a third axle and some wheels from an early 671. I glued standard-issue Lionel idler gears to the backs of the wheels, so all axles are powered. And it has a headlight, TMCC and electrocouplers! One of these days, I will get around to adding side rods and more handrails.

It can handle 3 or 4 cars on slight inclines, which is about right for use as an industrial switcher. How it found its way from the out-state silica mine to the big-city engine terminal today is anyone's guess.

This was my first Lionel train, and I was bummed that I could not run it on our layout (since it was DC-only); what started as a repaint and an e-unit install kind of took on a life of its own...

Thanks Killian for rotating pictures.  You will have to tell me how to rotate on here as this has happened before. 

Chis.  Of coarse I am quoting a 1957 magazine pre Thomas and a real train, but Thomas was surely popular with kids, my grandsons included. 

Nickaix,  neat job on the 0-6-0 tanker.  You really improved it.

That gives me the idea of changing motors on the Lionel 8905.  I could add a Marx 999 motor that is ac and reverses.  I have done this with other small switchers like this one below.

Modifying and customizing cheap Lionel and Marx is lots of fun.  Usually involves putting is new motor to make use of a good shell.

Charlie

Here's my favorite, a Right-of-Way "Docksider." I think that nickname was applied only to B&O "Little Joes."

Charlie,

      In the 1970's and 1980's, Bob Gale of Horsham, PA, kitbashed cheap/small/common Lionel locomotives to make everything from 0-4-0's to "scale" GG-1's, Big Boys (Berkshire running gears), and twin-motor 4-12-2's. The TCA Quarterly published an article about him around 1982. He called his last and best models "Super Classics." Here are two photos of a Reading T-1 he built.

The railroad shown in the magazine article is none other than the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal railroad or BEDT. The engine taking water is a Porter built in 1923 for the Astoria Power and Light plant. It was acquired subsequently by the BEDT for use on the railroad. BEDT operated a fleet of 6 tank engines . They had 4 yards North 6th street, Pidgeon Street in Long Island city, Brooklyn navy Yard and South 4th street. None of these were connected to each other by rail. When the work day started, cars and the engine were floated from North 6th street to the other three yards. When the days work was done the engines and cars returned to North 6th street by return carfloat for servicing. All were oil burners. The BEDT operated these steam locomotives in New York City's borough of Brooklyn until the end of October 1963.

The engine taking water is no. 16 and was the last to operate on the railroad. Today it is at the Railroad Museum of Long Island where it is undergoing cosmetic restoration with lots of TLC by the RMLI folks. There the group that have the Lionel Visitors Center layout as well. Not sure about the other engine in the photo. It may be No 15 which today still runs in Strasburg as Thomas. It was built in 1917 so that makes Thomas about 95 . All of the BEDT steamers were 0-6-0's . The railroad is gone today and the area has become an upscale area in Brooklyn.

Not all tank engines were dock switchers and the like.  The Mason Bogies were used on longer runs.  In other countries there were tank engines used for express passenger train work.  The Southern Railway of England for example.  The children`s

favourite, Thomas is a side tank locos,  Percy in the series is a saddle tank.  

    Incidently the word favourite has come up on my screen as a spelling error but that`s the way we spell it here.   Another quirk is the word `switcher` in the top line, I had typed in `shunter`. 

Here are a couple I would love to see modeled in 3 rail. Both have been done in HO and I believe in O Scale as well. If you think Beeps are slow the HO versions are geared for about 5 mph tops.

Pete

I bought a Darstead 2-6-2 tank engine (see trainshoover.com) earlier this year.  It is a beautiful, scale or near scale loco.  I could not find a picture of mine but the picture below, from hoover's website, gives you and idea: mine is green and LNER instead, but just as pretty.  Unfortunately, mine is three-rail DC and I have not had time to install a rectifier so I can't run it.  Its so pretty that I just brought it here to work and have it in a display box in my office. I understand since Hoover has shifted to AC or DC switch operation.  If so, I might buy another to run AC on my layout.

That's a shop switcher used for moving out of service locomotives around.  With its limited fuel and water capacity, it wouldn't be used anywhere outside the shops area.

Rusty

Think of it as a steam guy's trackmobile.

Pete

Thanks! It's not as pretty as a newer out-of-the-box 0-6-0, but it was a great project, and my first Lionel stays in service.

When I was applying decals, dad suggested that I add a "T" to the number, for "tank," do I did. In case you can't tell that just by looking!

You might not have to replace the motor on the 8905 to make it useful--Lionel starter set engines are all DC can motors running on AC, and I am sure that the board that allows that would be available. But the smaller drivers of the 999 would look good there.

I would never have noticed the Marx motor in that Vulcan had you not pointed it out. Looks like it drops right in!

My favorite Tank Engine is this K-Line CNJ, it has very nice detailing.  Bigger than the Docksider, but still a one-piece locomotive.

I vaguely recall that Baldwin built some 2-6-6-2T locomotives for logging and mining railroads. I remember seeing a No. 1 gauge model of a Uintah locomotive custom built for hairpin curves and steep grades. Side tanks or saddletanks also added weight that increased tractive effort.

Come to think of it, the Mt. Ranier Scenic Railroad runs a Baldwin 2-8-2T.

Why not just use an electronic reverse board, it's cheap and a lot simpler than ripping out the mechanics and changing the motor.

I have a something and Albany one, and you are right, it is a greater little engine.  But it is quite a bit bigger than a docksider, so in my mind, really a mainline engine I would think. 

Actually that engine is usually classified as a Suburban type, and was definitely used on the mainline.

For years, Mantua has been making a nice side-tank 2-6-6-2 articulated logging engine in HO:

Jim

Boy, the terms "tank engine," "saddle tank" and "docksider" sure are being thrown around willy-nilly. I won't even touch "tanker engine."

I have a particular fondness for one saddle tanker (so named because the water tank drapes over the boiler like a saddle, as opposed to side or pannier tanks). This is New Hope Valley No. 17, a 1941 Vulcan product. It's technically an 0-4-0T (the "T" standing, of course, for "Tank."). It's definitely not a "Docksider," although it did once work at New York Shipbuilding in Camden, NJ.

Here's an interesting tank engine in passenger service in New York. 

Nice. That's an 0-4-4RT Forney (The "RT" stands for "rear tank"). Forney comes from Matthias Forney, the dude that championed the 0-4-4.

Charlie, thanks for starting this thread. I'll have to go through my old issues to see if I have that particular one. The only tank engine I own is British; a pre-war 4-6-0 by Leeds, in LNER livery.

Right, I'm pretty sure this probably was a mainline engine for short runs.  Obviously, it had to stop pretty regularly for coal and water.

Because it handled commuter trains, that engine would indeed have made frequent stops.

As I mentioned earlier, this is called a Suburban type, often used for commuter runs, as Steve mentioned.

A prototype:

Jim

Frequent stops for passengers yes, but not for coal & water. Since most suburban, or "commuter", runs were fairly short, generally not exceeding 30-35 miles, the Suburban types were ideal for that service. They got re-supplied at the end terminal, and returned to the city of origan, without turning the locomotive. Even the New York Central, and later Boston & Albany, used the 4-6-4T engines quite a bit.

My thinking is the coal and water consumption would be proportional to the size of the train: a big heavy train uses a lot of coal & water, a suburban commuter train with, say, three or four cars, far, far less.  Many of the tank engines I see pictures of in the UK are pulling only a handful of cars.  My guess is that they could go as far with that load, with their small coal and water capacity, as a larger loco could with a heavier load, even though it had a larger tender (and some of the UK 4 and even 6 axle tenders weren't that big).  Probably the distance between fillups was about the same.

Some the bigger tank engines made in the US look to me to have a coal & water storage area that is about 1/4 the size of the smaller tenders on "real" locos.  Anyway, again I figure a tank engine like the K-Line CNJ above, pulling a short train, probably had about the range of a small Pacific with a small tender pulling a proportionally heavier train.  Probably made sense to use it when the train was only a dozen cars of so, as on backwoods lines, etc.  

I like this Baldwin 2-6-6-2T Mallet.

It started out as a logging locomotive, and now operates on a tourist line.

Now, that is a very fine looking engine.  I would like to have one of those on my layout.

The last 3 locos released by Darstaed have been tank engines. Very soon,Trains Hoover and The O gauge Guy will be offering these locos with optionally, an AC e unit by Dallee Electronics, and TMCC by ERR. The O Gauge Guy is the first ever company outside of North America to be appointed an ERR dealer/installer status.

That's a nice one Dave, I think I'll have to get a couple of European locomotives just to have some variety on the tracks.

What happened to the other photos, they're like postage stamps?

I picked up this mini Hudson kitbash set at York in the early 70's.  I wonder if its a genuine Gale??

Porter at Essex Steam Train, CT - Valley Railroad.

Dave - I have the 2-6-2 and it is beautiful.  The fact that it is three-rail DC is not serious to me: I could easily install rectifiers or an e-board. Of course, having an e-board installed in in the next one would be better.

However, it is tinplate which is no what I really prefer.  Are any of the recent/forthcoming Darstead tank engines cast metal?

BTW - the Darstead 2-6-2 I received had a very noisy set of gears - a real concern. It didn't have much if any lube in there when I disassembled it - it was much quieter after I covered all the gears with a rather thick lube I use (can't remember what brand but I think it is Lionel) and re-assembled the gear case.

Will it was an easy fix, I had an extra Marx 999 engine and it just popped right in.  I like the Marx 999 engine as it is heavier than the DC motor, reverse on every stop of motor and they run the best of all the Marx I have.

Charlie

If they have TMCC and I like the type of engine then I'm in. Let us know what type of engines will have TMCC.

Dave

The Great Western Sugar Company, in Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska, had a

fleet of about a dozen tank engines, 0-4-0's and 0-6-0's,  that were used to switch sugar beet gons and other cars in and out of their factories, but, especially, to unload sugar beets well into the diesel era, as they operated in a very wet environment where water was sprayed to unload beets.  Up I-76 NE out of Denver, there are three of these tank engines displayed on the grounds of or in the small downtown near closed sugar factories.  They were called "dinkies" by the company, and some were modified with odd fuel bunkers and one or two got short four wheel tenders.