UP's Heritage Fleet Auxiliary Water Cars

This tender probably was never behind the 814 (despite its most recent number of UPP 814). One possible reason that this tender was thought to be the 814 is that its badge number is 20-C-214.

Other information to further bust the myth of welding two tanks together. The drawings of the turbine conversion (which were not completely followed) show two different types of baffles. In the original tank portion, the baffles are staggered, alternating between a two-thirds height baffle attached to the bottom and a one-third height baffle attached to the top. This rivet pattern can be seen in photographs showing the old "Union Pacific" lettering. In the fuel bunker portion of the tender, the baffles are all full height. Again, the rivet patterns reflect this. The guys working on the tender report that the drawings are accurate in this regard.

There's not a lot of greyhound paint visible, it's just little spots. It can be confirmed that this tender was in the yellow striped version of greyhound. This appears to be consistent with the assignment information, though it's rather difficult to distinguish striping color in a black & white photo.

It was very interesting taking the jacketing of the cars off. As you may well know, it has been believed for a long time that the GE number on the tender tanks was the number of the 800 class locomotive that the tender originally ran with.

Interestingly enough, when the tenders were originally built, there was no number 0 or 00 or 000. The first tender was the 01 which was with the 800, thus from the start there is a problem with the way tenders were numbered in regard to the builder number on the tender tank and the locomotive.

When the tenders became turbine tender tanks, they were given turbine numbers. In most cases the tender number was the same as the builder number on the tank. So, for example, the 814, which is what we are working on would have really been the 813....or in other words the 813's tender.

So, when we took the jacket off, we expected to find the 813 number under the 814 jacket. We actually found two numbers......neither what we were looking for. The last actual locomotive that this car ran with was the 812. Before the 812 it appears that the tender was originally with the 809 or the 807.....couldn't really confirm the last number. We do know it was a 80....something.

Interestingly enough, we found gray paint and YELLOW, not silver stripes under the jacket as well. Though we found no yellow tender numbers, we found yellow and gray two tone scheme paint.

Jim Ehrenberger has studied the car in depth with me. Jim brought a book of tender records. The book [Union Pacific's equipment record] logs which tenders went with which engines. We can confirm from the record that the tender we have.....supposedly the 814....was never the 814 and if it is the 812, that the 809 also had the same tender at one time.

As history goes, the 800's where often brought to Cheyenne for class overhaul work. Once the Class One work was finished, the locomotives were then paired with the first Class One, or C-20 tender that was available after repairs were completed in the tender shop. This is how and why tenders were mixed up.

Now, Jim believes that the first greyhound paint job was done in Cheyenne on a Class One FEF. He also believes that this was the 812. However, records show it as painted two-tone gray with silver-gray stripes, not yellow stripes. However, Jim recalls that the first two-tone locomotive with yellow stripes was done in Cheyenne, not Omaha and that it is possible that the first FEF-1 two-tone was the 812 and that it was yellow stripes, not silver-gray.

There is much of the history that we will never know. One thing is for sure, the 814 water car, ran last with the 812 FEF 1 locomotive and that the 809 once had the same tender, both of which ran in a black paint job at one time.

The lack of yellow numbers was strange, however, we only found small spots of gray. In fact, had we not had been looking for it, we may not have seen it at all. The original sphere end of the car was very rusted and we were lucky to find what we did!

UP 907853 was the tender they used in the 1970's, and loaned to the American Freedom Train for a few trips. Later, in about 1981 or 1982, it was donated to the now-defunct museum in Kansas City to go with Turbine 18-18B. All three of these were sold to the Illinois Railway Museum later after the Kansas City group failed. The tender is in Union, Illinois, with the 18-18B, still painted black.

The 907856 and 907857 were two of six tenders discovered in Los Angeles in 1988. All were coupled together on piece of track not connected to anything at either end. They were all piped together and were used as a large diesel fuel storage tank. Three of the tenders were ex-FEF-1 tanks (which were NOT built by splicing two tanks together) and the other three were ex-CSA (3800-series 4-6-6-4) tanks, which were also NOT built by splicing two together.

We moved the three ex-FEF tanks to Cheyenne, and the three ex-CSA tanks to Ogden. One of those ex-CSA tanks is now displayed with their turbine. These ex-CSA tenders were not insulated and jacketed when converted, and you can easily see where the coal space was modified into more oil space. The other two of those ex-CSA tanks are at Ogden, awaiting movement here.

When we restored our two current water cars, we kept the 907-series numbers. Two or three years ago, we changed them to UPP numbers, and for the 800-series number, we simply used the number on the "class" plates, which were still on the frames. Again, we wanted to get away from the 900000-series numbers, as those are targets for retirement and sale. That is also why the flatcar was renumbered from UP 903008 to UPP 3008. We will eventually renumber or reinitial the two rotaries, for the same reason.

The third ex-FEF tender was scrapped at Cheyenne a couple of years ago.

Incidentally, the ex-FEF tenders were classed 24-GTE-xx when converted, and they have those plates on them, too. For years, the capacity of these things was given as 24,400 gallons. We filled one through a meter a few years back and they actually hold a little over 27,000 gallons of water.

We have a refurbishing plan to get rid of the jackets and insulation, the interior steam heat coils, and the "barrels" that housed the Calrods, and other unneccesary piping and components. That should give us close to another 1,000 gallons on each car without changing the loaded weight, which is 401,000.