A short word about tenders

Never really thought much about how many steam-era items of rolling stock survived in one guise or another.  Perhaps one of the most inglorious re-uses was taking the tenders from glorious and powerful freight locomotive and using them as storage tanks. I probably walked past more than I photographed for this very reason, but a few were captured.

Taree had5707's tender hoisted up onto concrete plinths when we popped by in January 1980.

In 1982 revered father and I did a 'there and back in a day' XPT trip to Dubbo. We saw this next one on the way into Dubbo and snapped it on the way out, through the carriage window. This one has always had me stumped - the tank has been butchered but I think its a turret tender. The painted number suggests 5340 or 5440, but underneath this is a fainter series of numbers ending possibly with a 3.  In official terms, it was L454. 

One that lasted well into the 21st century and may still be there is the tender of 5808 - at least I remember reading this somewhere as being the tender of 5808.

For the hell of it, this is what they were supposed to be... 5711's tender at Enfield in the early 1970s, sans loco.
  

And that's about it from 'the collection' - there may be others in there but I never coded them as such so they'll remain in obscurity for a while longer.  Thought I would finish with a couple of shots of Dubbo's semi-famous 57 class boiler, come sanding tower. 

Ciao for now - from the home of the mundane!
Don