Seeing as your prevous post has wander'd a bit the answer to your question of length is 12'' give or take an inch.
I have a Mantua logger but am using tthe Roundhouse short vanderbilt tender,sure its really close to the USRA tender that is stock.
At any rate a 16'' TT will more than suffice....
Soon as i have the time I''ll drag out an old artical i have stored someplace
and finish the kitbash i started a few years ago, mating a mantua mikado boiler to the 2-6-6-2 running gear for a real heavyweight drag freight locomotive...

Quote from: drhone on July 12, 2007, 01:53:26 PM
I will get a track guage today.

As to the wheel spacing aspect, how would one change the spacing of the drivers or the pilot on the 4-4-0?

As stated first check the wheel gauge with a NMRA wheel gauge.
Then the best way to change the gauge of either a lead truck or trailing truck is taking the wheels in either hand gently but firmly twist them in the direction they need to go either in or out. recheck with the gauge.
Drivers are useally splined and thats a whole different can of worms most likley needing a wheel puller.some put a drop of CA on them to assure their staying in gauge once their done.

GN. Class A 0-6-0 switcher

I'm thinking of buying the sound equipted 2-8-0 to doublehead or use as a pusher with my 2-10-0, question is are the drivers on these two engines the same diameter or at least close enough .
Or their both being DCC will it matter as we can use seperate throttles one controlling each locomotive.

Wondering if Bright boys can be rejuvinated,have several that have aged a bit and gotten hard,still work alright but would like to see if i can bring back their flexibility,such as it was.

Lets look at it this way: you send them your locomotive plus $20 plus shipping, say another$20.... for this you are going to probably get a brand new locomotive.
How's that a bad thing?
Or buy another one and place your older one on the side till you can find a motor for it...then you'd have two.

Ah great' thanks for the info. are they metal or plastic?

Got to looking at the tender on this engine (Santa Fe 2552 ) and notice that a kadee centering spring will not fit without modification of the coupler box.
Anyone swapped out the plastic coupler for a Kadee no. 5 ?
Or is there a different model Kadee that will drop in on this tender.

Boy oh'Boy wish my memory hadn't gone south on me.
Not long ago (within the last year)Icame across a artical by a fellow who used cereal box's to build structures the one shown was no less a coaling station I believe and it was just plane freaking fantastic.
Incredible workmanship....Ahh' now where'd i set my coffee down

I was was a bit concerned when hearing about the front tender trucks derailing because of the wiring harness causing the front truck to lift.
On opening the USRA style tender on my DCC/Tsunami Sound equipted Decapod I found that with the tender floor crowded with speaker and decoder there was not really room near the front  to install any weight,only spot was two small areas in either front corner,problem there was the tender shell would not seat properly if the 2 1/4 oz. stick on weights i wish to use were place there.
But on exploring the inside of the shell a bit find there is a even better 'imho' spot.
In the center of the tender shell there's a slight step down between the water tank and coal bunker,you can place one 1/4oz  in each corner
placing the weights also allows the wires for the back up light to fit nicely between them. the weights might be a bit high in the tender body but being centered distributes the weight over both trucks and still should solve the front truck derailing problem' mine tracked well with no sign of problems.

I do have a sound file of a U.P 9000 on my hard drive,forget where i got it but it did have a very distinctive sound

Or' you might use a couple of old sheets ,nice thing about them is that they  let the air thru but not the dust.

Here's a vote for a bit of a oddball the Norfolk & Western's class M1 4-8-0 Mastodon 

Quote from: GN.2-6-8-0 on June 18, 2007, 11:23:27 PM
You know the 215 number  getting a bit antsy and need to check the status of my 2-10-0....

Wouldn'cha know it.....UPS showed up about 3 hrs ago with it....

Also be sure to throughly clean the wheels on your locomotives,they may have picked up adhesive from the track while you were trying to run them....again 91%denatured alcohol using a Q tip works wonders.