The Tender Trap 11

What is the Tender Trap? It's what happens when someone places the tender of a toy or model locomotive backward because it "looks right that way." Usually, to do so, they have to ignore the connectors that are specifically designed to work only when the tender's facing the right way. 

So to insist on placing the tender backward, ignorance isn't enough -- you have to deliberately ignore the evidence in front of you.

Examples of toy and model locomotives with backward tenders are ubiquitous. So much so that it has to be something really unusual to add an example to this series.

But this is a new one, even for me.

What's wrong with this picture? Plenty.

I think this is the first time that the locomotive's backward as well. This turn of the century penny toy has a simple eyehook and pin coupler system. One end has an eyehook, the other a pin. The pin goes through the eyehook.

In this case, I give the person a partial pass on the tender. It looks symmetrical. Unless you examine the couplers carefully, it's difficult to say which end is the front.

Not so with the locomotive. It has an obvious front (that's where the smokestack is), and an equally obvious back (that's where the cab is). The front has no coupler at all. The back has an eyehook.

In this shot, both pieces are shown properly oriented. Why was this so
hard to do in the lead image?

So why place these two pieces this way? It makes no sense to me. Here's the way it should be displayed.

And here's why this stuff is important. The seller has all kinds of information about these pieces. But they didn't even put them in the right order. Why should I trust anything they have to say about an object they so clearly don't understand?

No sale.