The rail Tender Car is the simplest of all the rail cars to draw or illustrate.  

 

You start wth the there basic shapes: 2 squares and a square with an up swing.  The up swing is actually a steel door used for loading.

 

The three small rectangles to the far left are two henges and the latch.

 

Then you have the front and back coupler and finally the steel drop ramp the alows the Fireman to collect additional wood from the Tender and carry over to the engine.

 

Next comes the rail car frame and under-carriage, wheel springs and wheels.

 

 

 

Put them all together and you just drawn or illustrated a rail car Tender.

 

 

Illustrating the fire-wood stacked in the Tender may look more difficult than it really is.  Once again we turn to technique to get the job done.

 

When you cut a log across its grain the age of a tree is revealed in its rings.  The most outter ring is the bark ring which is always a dark brown. 

 

Depending on how dry or harsh the weather conditions may have been each year will determine how light brown or dark brown the rings are as they circle towards the center.

 

Next, we add dark squiggly lines which radiate out from the center. These lines represent cracks in the wood.  As wood dries cracks will form.  Most all seasoned wood or firewood left to dry for a year aftercutting will have these crack lines.  Seasoned wood was what steam trains preferred because it had less water in the wood and burnt hotter producing more stream.

 

Finally, draw a pattern using the ups sweep then stack 27-30 logs as indicated in the second to the last illustration.  Fill in black the space between each of the stacked logs.

 

Last but not least, color in your Tender rail car matching the color pallet used on the passenger rail cars.