Re: 268 tender and the Bumblebee Revisited

I agree, as my earlier comments indicate, about 268's not being a K-27 tender.
I had not paid any attention to the picture of 316 with that tender until now, it certainly looks similar. So does 317, and 318. There has been talk of inter-species tender swapping among the 2-8-0's here before. 268 did not recieve the larger air tank until the fifties, some time after her repainting in the bumblebee scheme, who knows it's origin? You may be on to something here.
While I find the 268 an interesting novelty in her silver and gold livery, I'm sure glad it didn't catch on. One of the biggest problems with the double stripes was keeping them straight on sloping tenders (473) and bowed belt rails on the coaches.
Some model builders would recoil in horror at how bent, twisted, sagged, bowed, and beat up the prototypes actually are up close.
One of the other things about the early version scheme that quickly changed was the use of silver paint on the trucks. Yikes! Coach 280 sat for years in Boulder in that original scheme.
Mike