Why so few Vanderbilt Tenders?

Did the eastern railroads switch over to oil. I don't  think the NYC or the Pennsy ever did. Coal country!!!

The New Haven had one. Going to the original question, it is very difficult to find one and they are expensive. I want one. I may make my own.

Lionel produced a Vandy Tender with one of their scale Hudson's in the late 1990s and they were roasted for it because it wasn't prototypical for a Hudson.  I've got one and I like it but they might be thinking once burned twice shy.

There are three Vanderbilt Tenders in the latest catalog on Lionel's USRA Pacific locomotives. Not sure on the prototypical realism but they are in there.

OKHIKER, et al, that’s no ones fault but Lionel. They should have done better research. Back then, we were getting into the age where modelers were, and are, wanting prototypically correct trains. I’d love to see and would probably buy, a GN S-2 , semi scale, if it had the correct vandy tender. Correct being 3 axle trucks and correct height. Lionel has used a K-line vandy tender on a couple of models but it sits way to high, IMO.

Steve

The Vanderbuilt tender wasn't exclusively for oil.  B&O and New Haven as mentioned above, along with the C&O and some UP locomotives had Vanderbuilts with coal bunkers.

Not all railroads converted any locomotives to oil.  Along with the Pennsy and NYC, N&W, IC and NKP come to mind.

Roads like the Santa Fe, the Burlington, Frisco and Canadian Pacific used rectangular tenders for both coal and oil burning locomotives.

I don't ever recall reading the advantages of a Vanderbuilt tender vs. a rectangular tender.  Esthetics? Functionality? Maintenance? Lower cost? Capacity?  I really don't know.

Rusty

Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line had Vanderbilt tenders.  I'm pretty sure SAL had both coal and oil, not sure about ACL.  SAL also had a couple of different types of Vanderbilt and semi-Vanderbilt types.

I think a lot of folks forget that much maligned Hudson was trying to emulate the 763e which did come with such a tender before finally coming with a more correct tender later.

It is a hard line to walk between rivet counting and offering fun nostalgia for Lionel.

@OKHIKER posted:

Lionel produced a Vandy Tender with one of their scale Hudson's in the late 1990s and they were roasted for it because it wasn't prototypical for a Hudson.  I've got one and I like it but they might be thinking once burned twice shy.

@RideTheRails posted:

OKHIKER, et al, that’s no ones fault but Lionel. They should have done better research. Back then, we were getting into the age where modelers were, and are, wanting prototypically correct trains. I’d love to see and would probably buy, a GN S-2 , semi scale, if it had the correct vandy tender. Correct being 3 axle trucks and correct height. Lionel has used a K-line vandy tender on a couple of models but it sits way to high, IMO.

Steve

Read a little more on the history before jumping to conclusions fellas, ....the NYC did indeed experiment with Vandy tenders, although they didn’t go into production, nonetheless, they were testing the abilities of the Vandy’s ability to take water on the fly,....so did Lionel do a great injustice???........again, know facts before jumping to conclusions,....

Pat

Sunset Models / 3rd Rail has done a number of locomotives with vanderbilt tenders. For B&O fans they did the Q-4, T-3, and S-1. Westside did the Q-4 with a vanderbilt. Sunset also has done the correct C&O vanderbilts. Sunset / 3rd Rail has also done Great Northern vanderbilts. So did Weaver Models.

Sunset / 3rd Rail did the B&O T-3t vanderbilt tenders as extra sale items as well as doing the T-3t locomotive / tender.

Interesting relative read...

Vanderbilt Link

Seems to me Lionel was honoring the heritage of the tender design?   After all, if Great Grandpappy Vanderbilt was the founder of the NYC system, what better way for a toy train manufacturer to honor a significant design creator than marry it to the iconic engine of the same railroad!

Or not.

KD

BTW...MY favorite railroad...ATSF...was never enamored with Vanderbilt tenders.   And my only comment to that is "Phooey!! I wish they had used some!!"  I think they're far more interesting than the traditional humpty-box on wheels. 

I suspect that packaging electronics-sandwiches and Chubby-Buddy speakers in a toy train Vanderbilt tender is not nearly as easy as into a nice spacious hexahedron. 

@dkdkrd posted:

I suspect that packaging electronics-sandwiches and Chubby-Buddy speakers in a toy train Vanderbilt tender is not nearly as easy as into a nice spacious hexahedron.

That's correct, not nearly as much space.  I still managed to stuff a BPRC receiver, battery, on/off switch, and charging jack in the 2 tenders I built from scratch.  The design of a Vanderbilt tender makes it more difficult to get into the inside unless properly designed.  The 2 I have, the rear of the water tank pops off:

I'm sure the engineers that design our models could easily determine how it needs to be done.  With a rectangular tender we simply remove a couple of screws and pop the shell off.

@scale rail posted:

With so many railroads switching to oil in the 40's and 50's

Please name some/any of the "so many railroads" that switched to oil fuel in the 40's and 50's.

why aren't there more steam engine offered with Vanderbilt tenders? Would't be great for Lionel to offer coal or oil tenders with some of their steam engine?

Even if the prototype never had a Vanderbilt tender?

Don

By the way... The Illinois Railway Museum has three coal burning locomotives with Vanderbuit tenders: GTW 4-8-4 6325, UP 2-8-0 428 and Graysonia Nashville & Ashdown 2-6-0 26 and one oil burner with a Vanderbuilt, SP 2-10-2 975.

Seems coal Vanderbuilts win out...

Rusty

The venerable, though very unprototypical Lionel 400E, had a Vanderbilt oil tender.

I agree Vanderbilt tenders are hard to find and I have given up.  But Vanderbilt tenders are not that hard to make.  Here are the two I made using the front part of a Lionel junked coal tender, mailing tubes for the cylinder tank part and Pam or hair spray can bottoms for the rounded back end of the water tank.

Picture below shows hair spray can botton used for dished end of tender

Details and pictures on how I made the longer Vanderbilt tender is in the following OGR link

https://ogrforum.com/...28#99977313410511728

Charlie

Great Northern switched from a mix of coal and oil fuel to all oil about 1950.  Only 1 I can think of in that time period.  NYC had one division with oil burning steam locomotives:  the Adirondack Division, to Lake Placid - believe it ran through Federal Forest land.

@harmonyards posted:

Read a little more on the history before jumping to conclusions fellas, ....the NYC did indeed experiment with Vandy tenders, although they didn’t go into production, nonetheless, they were testing the abilities of the Vandy’s ability to take water on the fly,....so did Lionel do a great injustice???........again, know facts before jumping to conclusions,....

Pat

No one was jumping to any conclusions.  It was a simple statement that Lionel got roasted for producing the Vandy Tender with their 763 Hudson and they did.  That , my friend is a fact.

The other poster you referred to simply said that Lionel should have done more research on the Vandy Tender and he is probably correct because even by your own statement Lionel only experimented with the use of the Vandy Tender but they were never put into production.  There is certainly no evidence they were ever used on their passenger or freight lines.  They definitely were never paired with a Hudson.  The definitive work on the Hudsons, Thoroughbreads. by Alvin Staufer has many, many photos of Hudons and there isn't one Vandy Tender in any of them.  Perhaps you should read the posts more closely before you jump to conclusions.

The Vanderbilt tender was invented by Cornelius Vanderbilt III (US Patent # 681,760), which makes it especially strange that it was never used by the New York Central.