I'm curious if anyone else would be interested in Southern 4501 offered as a brass hybrid from Lionel. It has never been done accurately in O scale. Being made in brass it could be offered in as built appearance with the short tender, as K&T #10 (with a dog house on the tender), Southern excursion era in green with short and long tenders, and then present day black with long tender and feedwater heater.
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Lionel likely still has the tooling from the original 4501 Mikado they built (thanks to soon-to-be MTH supplier, Samhongsa) in 1992, and that one is very closely modeled on its excursion service from 1969 to 1994 with the silver boiler front, green Crescent paint, and ex 2-10-2 tender.
Keep in mind, despite being less detailed than what can be done today, that the chassis on that is far more accurately sized to the real 4501 than the existing ex K-Line line chassis that Lionel's been using on the recent Legacy light/heavy/Santa Fe brass hybrid locomotives. Same could be said about the 1992 tender.
If Lionel were to make a brass hybrid of the 4501, they should use the original Korean-style chassis.
I understand the valve gear might not be perfect, but I at least want a decent boiler. I heard the die cast tooling was lost but that might not be correct.
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