Extra water tenders are a common sight on steam excursions, now that water towers are gone. But did any railroads use them on regularly scheduled trains? I'm sure there were some.
The Denver & Rio Grande Western used them in many areas to extend the range of their steamers. Around the Moffat Tunnel and between Grand Junction, CO and Green River, UT
Never seen those. Not surprising, considering that most Rio Grande steam photos I've seen are narrow gauge. And by the way... Welcome to TrainBoard!
Thanks Nick...been here for a little while...just long enough to cause trouble. BTW the aux tenders on the heritage fleet are undergoing modification so we have a THIRD possible design for aux tenders for the Challenger et al. To make things worse, the tender recently used on 844 and the Challenger (see current N Scale Supply page) # 814 has been modified to remove the sloped ends. Original 814 Modified 814 Wasatch Railroad Contractors has modified tender (water car) 814 and is working on 809 to do the same for the Heritage Fleet. See http://projects.wasatch-rr-contractors.com/?page_id=14 and the following pages. I have been on the lookout for photos of UP engines with ANY water tenders. All we have in N scale that is readily available is the old Veranda "tank" version. I would love to see a photo with one of those on a heritage engine or on a Big Boy at the end of their career so we could justify using them now behind a Challenger or Big Boy in N scale. The modifications that Wasatch is doing would seem to make a scratch built easier to do if one could find an appropriate tender to start with. No beveled ends or handrails. Steve E.
L&N used an aux. tender on the Silver Bullet- a fast freight train. If I remember correctly, the N&W aux tender used behind the J and the A, in the excursion years, was a modified L&N berkshire tender.
http://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/ic2553.htm I found this shot of an IC Mountain with an auxiliary tender. It seems this was more widespread than I thought.
Interesting.....I guess using auxiliaries was probably a lower annual expensive on medium density routes than the cost of maintaining track pans like the Central and Pennsy.
All the years I was around the Big Boys, I never saw any with auxiliary tenders on them. Here is a photo someone sent me of a Challenger close to Point-O-Rocks, Wyoming, that has 2 aux. tenders, and 3 different tool cars on:
