I saw an ad for a local estate sale that said "Lionel trains", so I figured I would check it out. It was mostly MPC stuff but they had a 6-28036 Southern Pacific Consolidation NIB. I bought that, as I have been looking for either a scale SP Consolidation or Mikado. I model the AT&SF with a bit of SP mixed in, so this fit perfectly. I got it really cheap. Out of the box the smoke unit didn't work. Turns out, after some testing, the triac on the R2LC was damaged from the factory. I had a spare R4LC so I swapped that in and it works great.
The smoke output is anemic vs my other steam locomotives (all MTH Premier), but that's to be expected from a puffer unit. The 1 chuff a revolution is a bit bothersome as well. I can see this locomotive getting either a fan driven smoke unit, Cruise Commander, super chuffer, chuff generator combo or a PS3 upgrade at some point.