PJ and all...just saw new post on your link (http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic...42&t=63994) that may shed some light on the truck and maybe the "sloped" tender. Bob C

The picture in the photobucket album, shows an arch bar, or Andrews, rear truck, and a bettendorf lead truck.
The best guess is that for what ever reason they can't fix the problem easily, right now, so they are using the tender with its "tilt". It's not "right", but it appears to be working well enough for the time being. It is possible that the "new" front truck has slightly weaker springs than the "old" rear truck. A matched pair of trucks might fix the tilt.

The A&A replied to my e-mail asking about the tilted tender: according to them, the tender is from loco #14 and the tilt is caused by the fact that "it couples up differently". Perhaps the tender drawbars are mounted higher than those on the 18's original tender - mounting a lower truck on the front of the tender may have been sufficient to get things to line-up properly with the loco. Still, it would have looked better if they had changed the rear truck too, so that it matched.

Wayne

doctorwayne Wrote:Still, it would have looked better if they had changed the rear truck too, so that it matched.

but then the rear draft gear would have to be changed.

I don't like the solution, but I can see why they did it.

Thanks for the answers and explanations guys. After looking, you can really tell the differences in the truck, something I hadn't noticed in the first picture.

Incidentally... I watched some youtube videos of A&A 18 pulling excursions... looks weird with the tilted tender... but wow such an awesome sounding whistle! One of the best I've heard...