Was the Hicken tender ever paired with any of the Spectrum steam engines?
I have a Heavy Mountain which is paired with the large Vanderbilt tender and in my opinion the Hicken is a better match for that engine.
The Vanderbilt tender was designed around the turn of the century. It's advantage is that it carries more fuel and water but weighs less than a conventional tender. It gets its name from its inventor, Cornelius Vanderbilt III, the great-great grandson of the Vanderbilt of NYC fame.
The Hicken tender is a Vanderbilt-style tender that I believe was developed on the Southern Pacific I heard or read that someplace, but I cannot verify it at the moment. I would suggest that you research SP steam. The primary difference of the "Hicken" seems to be the shape of the fuel bunker. It makes sense that an oil bunker would be shaped differently than a coal bunker. Here is a picture of a SP 2-6-6-0 with what looks to me to be very similar to the Bachmann tender.
http://tinyurl.com/ml7rb6
I know this doesn't directly answer your question, but it should give you a place to start looking.
Rusty
Thanks for the link.
The picture of the SP mallet with the smaller Vanderbilt/Hicken tender is just what I wanted. As it happens I have obtained a couple more Hicken tenders to replace the tenders for my Spectrum 2-6-6-2's.
I also recently acquired another Spectrum 4-6-0 and was surprised to see the third tender that is available in the 4-6-0 lineup. The difference is in the two tenders paired with the 63" drivers is so subtle that one could easily overlook it.
I am still wondering if the Hicken tender was ever paired with any of the Spectrum engines. It certainly looks good with the Heavy Mountain and Mallet engines.
A search of the forum indicates that the Hicken tender is a swap for the Heavy Mountain and Mallet engines so there should hopefully be no problems with the circuit board.
I believe the newest 4-8-2 Heavy in SP livery with the Tsunami DCC system is paired with a Hicken tender.
I picked one up in SP livery and hooked it up to a Spectrum Heavy unlettered, droped in the Tsunami myself and awy she rolled.
Prototypical? Offered as a Stock item? I'm not sure, but it fit rule #1 as subscribed to by a number of posters here.
BTW if you modle SP you ought to have this link (http://espee.railfan.net/espee.html?) in your reference collection
Thanks for the link. You are right about the Hicken being paired with the SP Heavy Mountain.
I recently picked up a Heavy Mountain in the C&O livery and it came with the larger Vanderbilt tender, I much prefer the Hicken tender myself as it seems more in scale to the engine.
Perhaps growing up amid Canadian Steam with their smaller tenders has influenced my preferences.
Quote from: Pacific Northern on July 04, 2009, 10:57:42 PM
Perhaps growing up amid Canadian Steam with their smaller tenders has influenced my preferences.
I still remove one tender water tank ring to make them even shorter and more "Canadian".
One of the characteristics of C&O steam was a large tender. The 16V tender is authentic for the J-2 (USRA Heavy Mountain) as well as the J-1. Match the USRA light Mallet to the 16V and the COHS says you have something that looks close to the H-4/H-6, though the C&O never supplied their H-5s with any Vanderbilts. My personal theory is that the H-5 insulted C&O brass hats because it a as good as, or close to as good as their own H-4s and 6s.
Gene
The Southern Pacific version of the Heavy Mountain comes with a Hicken tender.
My Atlantic Central has them behind some of our Mountains because we fuel our passenger power with oil.
And we have the long vandy behind our USRA 2-6-6-2's.
Just another great thing about Spectrum locos, all the great tender swaps.
Sheldon