Steam loco tenders: types, weight & other characteristics

Overview:

This page started with the question: "What should a tender weigh?". Why am I even asking this?

Well, after finally "graduating" to good enough trackwork to handle long trains, with wheels properly gauged, and switches that work, and body mounted couplers, I found that I could not only run long trains, but I could also back long trains without derailments.

But, when I tried backing long trains headed by steam locomotives, I got derailments.What was happening to my smoothly running railroad?

It was the tender! With such a short "car" it could not be problems with curvature. I remembered something else at this time, the Northern that Rex Ammerman bashed for me had a really heavy tender. Hmm, maybe Rex knew something I did not.

So, I weighed some of my tenders, and while constructing this page, have added some additional reference information:

Aristo "Long Tender" ART-21800

This tender originally came with the Aristo Pacific and Aristo Mikado, and was available separately.

No backup light, power pickup sometimes 2 axles, sometimes 4, but only one wheel per axle. Rarely wired correctly.

The stock Aristo Mikado "long tender" weighed 3 pounds xx ounces with factory speaker.

The speaker is 70mm, the outside dimension is 3". (remember the right way to measure speaker diameter is the cone plus the surround diameter, not the outside of the frame).

The trucks are leaf spring type, and the wheelbase on the trucks is 2.7"