Talk ‘n’ Action Tender Screws

I was looking at my Talk ‘n’ Action Henries and noticed that the undersides of their tenders are different. One has three screws (one as part of the battery cover and two on the sides), while the other has only one screw (the two on the sides have been replaced by circular indentations). Does anyone know when this change was made and which version came first?

Photos:

@TrainsRAwesome Hmm, I'm not sure about this, my Talk N Action Gordon only has 1 screw just like your Henry on the right, I would guess it was changed during the final year they were being produced, maybe a little before, for the purpose of making them easier to be fixed? I'm not an expert so I'll leave it to the likes of Muddy Poppins and others to answer this

[Super]

Interesting...what holds the chassis to the coal bin in the one without the 2 screws....glue?

@Super No, the same one middle screw also connects to / holds in the coal bin. It couldn’t be glued because you need to put two more batteries in the top for it to work.

Also, just opened them up again and found the date codes. The one with one screw is from 2000 and the one with three screws is from 2003. Still don’t know when the transition was made, though.

[Super]

Oh, so the bottom screw labeled 'Open' is for a battery underneath?

Yup, there is one battery at the bottom and two up top.

I noticed this last year, first on James. The screws were swapped to going downwards from inside the battery compartment, maybe parents were unscrewing them instead of the actual battery cover screw?




Here's what most of my Henrys have for screw direction and production code, for those interested

[Super]

That makes sense Duck, thanks

@DuckGWR Thanks. My “2000” one doesn’t have the screws at the bottom, but my “2003” does, contrary to your models. I know that I haven’t swapped the battery covers, so maybe they already had the wrong ones when I purchased them.