Railworks America

It is true, Western Pacific had repurposed steam locomotive tenders to use as water tenders for the boilers for passenger trains. Three tenders from scrapped 171 class steam locomotives, 174, 175, and 177 were used as auxiliary water tanks. These were renumbered 853, 851, 852 and painted orange and silver to match the motive power.








Information courtesy of Feather River Historical Society and WPRR Railroad Museum Western Pacific Railroad History Online.

Found another.

I've always loved these cars, and of equal coolness is the steam generators WP bought off of Great Northern for some testing on the Zephyr.


The original intent with the cars was to use a single U30B plus a gennie to power the 11 car train, but the Uboats proved too unreliable and ill-suited to use as passenger engines, so that fell through. However, WP retained the cars, and since the Zephyr didn't require 4,500 horsepower to run at speed (consist was only three units for steam heat-2 units couldn't supply enough steam for the whole train), they occasionally replaced the third B unit on trains, particularly near the end when the train was running as short as 7 or 8 cars.

All of WP's oddball cars were so cool, wish the railroad had lasted at least a little bit longer--woulda loved to see them try to stick to their 4-axle policy through the 90s!

MFEETS wrote:All of WP's oddball cars were so cool, wish the railroad had lasted at least a little bit longer--woulda loved to see them try to stick to their 4-axle policy through the 90s!

I'm guessing if the yellow sponge hadn't absorbed them, you would have seen GP50's and GP60's in the latest Perlman green scheme with the orange noses. They were one model step away with their last order of GP40-2's. Perhaps all those older GE U boats that were rebuilt into Super 7's would have stayed on home rails.