Why does this old steam loco have the tender backwards?

Thank You Bill N, that is an interesting and (I think) plausible perspective, considering the era and background information..

Owen Thurdee showed a great period photo which got me wondering about tender details. This portion of the photo shows two typical locos with an enclosed box at the right front corner of each tender. Is this a tool box, or a dry place to keep kindling to start a fire? 

 

 Click on photo to enlarge

I knew it didn't sound quite right.  Thank you for correcting my terminology. When one hasn't run and serviced these things for a number of years, many of the finer details get lost in the mind. But soon I hope to get mine back out of storage, serviced and re-certified, and back at the throttle.  Oh how I miss running a live steamer.

I think that another aspect to consider is the big picture.  Look at whats going on, there are the flat cars loaded with fill and close to that 3 stall building on the left there is fresh fill that has been dumped...the car closest appears to have less fill on it then the others.  Now look at the gentleman standing by the track close to the building, he's not wearing a jacket...his jacket is on the brake wheel of the other car further away...he could have walked away from it if it's his jacket...or the train backed away.  Also in a enlarged version of this image you can make out the engineer in the cab and he is looking out the side window and towards the back...maybe the train was backin slowly or preparing to.  But in that enlarged image you can see the engine is under steam, manned and I believe working.  It is possible that the tender was turned to facilitate loading of wood....maybe she's just a yard mule and as such things were made to suit those operations.

Each water leg of the tender had a tool box like that. The crew was responsible for making minor repairs and/or adjustments when on the road, and so had to have a selection of tools available.

I would surmise the locomotive is just coming out of the yard and the tender may have been turned to facilitate loading more wood.

 

BTW here is a cut away picture of a simple steam engine to understand what a crown sheet is and why its so important to have water add a proper level.

 

 

 

How is it easier to load more wood? The wood is loaded from above, not from the end.

 

Loading wood is not a big enough deal to go through the hassle of unpinning the drawbar, unhooking the tender hoses, turning the tender, somehow re-inserting a locomotive drawbar into a link-and-pin mouth, and re-routing the water from the water legs to the water pump piping under the engine.

Steve, we respect your experience with steam locomotives, but I think you need to look at the larger picture regarding the place and time of this photo. You had previously doubted that the loco was actually being operated this way, but the photo has multiple clues that it really is. Those were desperate days of the Civil War when every available piece of equipment was pressed into service at this very busy supply depot. It's difficult for us to imagine, nearly 150 years later, all of the improvising that might have been done, possibly in ways that might seem bizarre or unworkable to us now.

http://www.nps.gov/history/logcabin/html/cp.html
... City Point became one of the busiest ports in the world for a brief, 10-month period during the war. Logistical operations were enormous ...

 

 I appreciate all of the comments that help to understand this early era of railroading.

A railroad map of city point seems to show a turntable.

 

 

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/34/24/34-2341a.jpg

 

The efforts to make the tender operational in this configuration would have been much more difficult and time consuming than simply turning the tender around on the table.

 

But, if you wish to believe that the tender is facing backwards because it was easier to load, kept the wood from slipping forward into the cab, looked better that way or was purchased that way from eBay, or any other hairbrained suggestions that have been posted here, by all means believe those.  

One of the things that bothers me about the photo is all three locomotives seem to be emitting the same amount of smoke and steam. 

 

Possible, yes.  Probable, no. 

 

Unless the U.S. Military Railroad had syncronized firemen teams, this leads me to believe the smoke and steam were added in the darkroom.  It's my opinion.  Photo-manipulation was possible even back in those days.

 

And as Steve has pointed out, there appears to be a turntable at City Point.

 

Maybe this is an issue for the History Detectives...

 

Rusty

Here's a photo of the City Point turntable:

 

In looking at that tender, the wood looks to be up and over the end of the tender facing the cab, and some pieces of wood look to be angling downward into the cab.

 

I have to agree that although there is knowledge of steam locomotives on here second to none, when you look at the time period and the circumstances, it may be just an attitude of "get it running however you can".

Wood is often piled on wood burners heavy at the rear. Even the spring suspension is beefier on the rear truck. On an empty tender, the rear is usually higher in the air because of the beefier springing.

The tender in question does not have truck side frames. Where many tenders built this way?

Not many--it was probably a real pain to oil those inside bearings.

Again, the amount of time, work and man power it would have taken to "convert" the tender (we're talking a pretty large job) just isn't justified, when a mule could have hauled the tender to the turn table and spun it in a matter of minutes.

I would suspect that the tender in question may have belonged to a different locomotive (They don't appear to match very well.) and was 'adapted' to run with that locomotive as a temporary affair just to get the locomotive running.

Steve-The map you have posted is dated 1865.  The facilities at City Point were altered and expanded significantly from June of 1864 onwards, so the map may not reflect conditions when the picture was taken. 

 

Alexander shows three pictures of the three stall engine house, the location where the picture was taken.  In one there is no track leading off to the left on the engine house.  A second shows a switch having been installed with a track leading off to the left, but you cannot make out a turntable or any buildings to the left of the engine house.  The third shows another track off to the left with a line of cars and a building at the end (possibly a car shop) a track leading to the turntable and extensions on the side of the engine house.  Both the turntable and the car shop are present on the map.  This suggests the turntable and then the car shop were added at that location after Grant arrived and before the map was made.

 

I have not seen a date for the subject picture of the President.  If you study it you will notice the train is on the left most track visible.  There is one other track visible between the loaded flats and the water tank, which would make that track the right most lead into the engine shed.  To my eyes from the uncropped picture it appears there may be one track obscured by the locomotive and cars.  This suggests only the three engine shed leads were present when the picture was made, making this picture from the early period.  Of course it is possible the picture dates from after the turntable lead was put in, but the lead isn't visible in the photo.

 

I think that is about all I can add to this discussion.

The National Archives has it dated as 1864...perhaps all that work is what is taking place in the photo with all that fresh fill being dumped in the photo.

The photo of the turntable has notes from the National Archives indicating it was taken in 1863.

I guess I do have something to add.  The map says drawn at the office of the Chief Engineer… June 1865.  The picture of the turntable could not date from 1863 because City Point was in Confederate hands until Butler captured it in the spring of 1864.

Just a thought here, but could it be possible that the locomotive in question (with the 'backwards' tender), is not really "in service" at all, but is being pulled/pushed from a locomotive at the other end of the cut of cars, which is out of sight? It certainly appears that the locomotive in question is under steam, but no crewmen are visible.

There is a engineer in the cab.

That doesn't mean the engine is hot.

 Everyone keeps showing the partial photo...

I'm begining to wonder about the two guys at the left.  Seems an awkward place to relax and have a chat.

 

Rusty

Thanks, Rusty! That certainly shoots THAT thought all to heck!

Guys, guys guys...

 

City point is the terminus of a railroad built in the 1850s. I doubt you will find any instance in steam railroading where a terminal was built WITHOUT a turntable (or a wye, etc).

 

Therefore, I stand by my assertion that a turntable existed when the photo in question was taken.

Like I said earlier the entire photo needs to be looked at.   Those men standing down by the tracks are not down there for tea time, they appear to be dumping that dirt next to the track, the dirt by that building down to the car nearest the building is fresh as you can easily see it has a much different texture.  The photo of the turntable shows that same 3 stall bldg. behind it, those men are most likely dropping fill for that turntable.     

     The original photo is from 1864 and as Bill N posted that terminal wasn't captured until the spring of 1864 so it jives in terms of a time line.  There is an engineer in that cab and there appears to be steam coming from that engine.  Could the photo have been altered?  Possibly.  I think that all though this type of operation is extremely odd we can not discount the necessities of war, a bunch of improvising went on then.  Nor should we assume that it's a altered photo, or staged just because it is so unconventional...after all we are all looking at this thru todays eyes.

Then there is also this photo, this engine is sitting right in front of those water tanks in front of that 3 stall bldg., and if you look at the bottom of the photo you see the new 4th track....which is sitting on that fresh fill.  So this photo was definitely taken after the other one.   This track must go to the turn table along side that 3 stalled bldg.   which would be later in 64'.  I also don't think the steam from this engine was "added" by anyone nor do I believe it was "added" to the other photo.  I really think that engine was a slapped together work train used for various jobs in and around that terminal.  But at the end of the day none of us will ever really know.

 

 

Map caption reads:

 

Military Railroad map
City Point, Va.
Principle terminus of City Point and Army Railroad Line
Base of Armies operating against Richmond ... June 1865

 

The long 3-track shed and turntable can be identified on this map, above "Military Railroad Head Qrs." at lower center.

  

 

So this photo was apparently taken at an earlier stage of development at City Point:

  

 

The locomotive "President" with the backwards tender is a Norris, smaller and probably older than many other locomotives then in use:

  

 

I've learned some really interesting railroad history from researching this puzzle.

Could be they are moving the tender to another track

My wife bought me this model a few years back, and sure enough it was on display as photographed.  I finally told the lady at the mall kiosk that the picture was wrong and she really should turn the tender around. She laughed and once explained agreed. She then said she had shown it that way for several years and no one had told her. I thought that was odd since Ogden is an old RR town and still has a bunch of old timers and foamers around

 

 

Regarding the engine and tender in question, by looking at them together I would say they are older than the other engine's visible in the photo and are of a 1850's design. In that decade, it was very common for 4-4-0's to have the front wheels as close together as possible. Also the tender has inside bearings, another common feature of the time which suggests to me the tender is the original one for that engine.

From what life experience I have had in my career in photography, my volunteer railroading at heritage railroads, and my amateur study of war, I side with the "get'er done and running" rational. I would therefore hypothesize that the tender's engine drawbar pocket was damaged somehow. Perhaps it was broken in a hard coupling or, since this is wartime, maybe it was sabotaged by retreating troops to make it unusable. I would guess that the engine drawbar is the same height as the tender's link and pin coupler pocket thus facilitating a workable attachment. Whatever the reason it could not be used normally, most likely there were no spare tenders so the boys made do in getting an engine working in the time allotted. 

While it is possible to have manipulated the photo for smoke effects, I am of the opinion the smoke is genuine for I am sure the photographer had no time to fool around with effects. He was no doubt was busy enough dealing with his bulky 8x10 camera, wetting the glass negative in his tent (hence the term "wet-plate"), putting the wet glass in the camera, exposing it, taking it back to the tent to develop it before it dried and then printing the picture. 

Regarding the two people and the strange-to-our-modern-eyes-pose; it is a common professional technique to include people in an image and almost any Civil War shot has them. The photographer knew that with humans to add scale and interest his shot would be more compelling to his audience.

The truth is, unless the details are documented in someone's journal, we'll never know the how and why.

 

Frankly, I think the two guys on the left are having a good chuckle on how the backwards tender will get 21st Century train nuts all wound up about it!

Rusty

I think you're right, Rusty...we'll never know. I feel 99% certain the locomotive was being used as shown - for how long (minutes, hours) who knows, but I don't think it would be for very long. Your captions offer a great solution!

 

Neil 

I still feel the modifications needed to be able to fire the engine, the most difficult being re-routing or replacing the water hoses, would have been too extensive to achieve any kind of efficiency, while the tender (or engine) could easily have been turned on the turntable which we know existed.

We know the turntable existed; we don't know if it was functional at the time (out of service, sabbotage, etc). The other engines are facing the opposite direction, same as the errant tender, but that's probably coincidental.

 

Steve, I agree the operation of that engine would have been grossly burdensome.

 

It's truly a history mystery.

 

Neil

Steve and I are probably working from the same materials but have reached opposite conclusions.  I don't think there would be an advantage to us re-opening this debate.  However for anyone interested in doing further reading, a copy of McCallum's report which includes the USMRR construction activity at City Point can be found here:  http://ehistory.osu.edu/osu/so...cfm?Content=126/0066

After examining everything in the photograph, it is my opinion that the LOCOMOTIVE is backwards!

Finally, the correct answer! 

;-)