Dipping Toes Into Postwar

The postwar lionel baldwin wheeled 675/2025 steam engines are great smooth running engines.

Its been said the machining of the mid to late 40s was very good and i believe thats spot on as the same one made afterwards with its plain spoke wheel while decent is not as smooth as the previous model as the machining standard somehow must have changed.

Martin

I happen to like the 224 steam engine(a 2-6-2 wheel arrangement) and it's pre war version the 224E, both are really good for performance from an older engine.

Lee Fritz

I have a pretty wide range of Lionel PW engines and as a group I would say the "5"s as I call them are as good as you will find at a decent price. They are the 675/2025, 2055 and 2065 plus some others. Smooth, strong runners. I have about 10 of them. Have fun.

Before things get too far along, what is the logic behind Lionel's numbering system? This will be my first real encounter with post war. 

For locomotives the three digit numbers are for "O" track, the four digit numbers are for "027" track. Typically it is the height of the wheel flanges that dictate whether the loco can be run on the lower profile track.  One quirk is the S2 turbines, specifically the 671/2020 engines.  671 would mean it needs "O" track, 2020 can be run on "027", BUT they are identical locos, just numbered different.  The rolling stock has a numbering scheme, that has a chart explaining how the numbers were derived.  Attached is a page listing how the numbers came about.

I would assume with Fastrack, wheel flange will not be an issue?

quote:

Typically it is the height of the wheel flanges that dictate whether the loco can be run on the lower profile track.

Can you give a few examples?

As far as I know, all Postwar locomotives of a given type have the same depth wheel flanges. Sometimes the only difference between an "O" gauge steam locomotive, and "027" steam locomotive, and a Super "0" locomotive is the number stamped on the side of the cab. The tenders may differ.
For example the 637 was sold as a Super "0" locomotive. It is essentially the same as a 2037 (different tender), which was sold as "027". Both run fine on "0", "027", and Super "0" track.

One thing to look for as well would be on early postwar engines, sometimes the 027 version had sliding shoe contacts & the O gauge one had rollers.  I've had mixed results w/ the show contact engines on Fastrack

Poke around on the Tandem associates site for a free catalog that is fairly accurate.

I recommend picking up David Doyle's book "Standard Catalog of Lionel Train Sets"

This will give a description of what they offered thru the postwar years and what makes them collectable over other sets.

Check Amazon for the book.

franktrain