Thoughts on the "tender powered" engines.

I don’t really care for tender driven engines either.
@Mr. No YES! engines should ALWAYS do the pulling, @DalaG Yes, unless there is a worthy feature or function installed in the engine (like moving eyes Talking Thomas).
But @ Yes OTR, other than that, they look and feel wrong to me too.
I don’t understand why exactly this was ever done?
All of the original tender driven Thomas characters were eventually liberated, so why not make them that way from the beginning?
If FisherPrice was able to make a single unit motorized talking engine, it seems that anything is possible, and @Super, there seems to be many designs and ways to wiggle a battery inside of a tiny engine chassis, but that it’s ultimately more of just an issue of using the crutch of convenience.