Thanks Jake,
so to be clear the engine is a restoration,
not a repro?
thanks,
Richard
I'd be inclined to say a restoration. I've never heard of reproductions of locomotives from that particular era (granted I'm fairly new to collecting early 20s Lionel) and I don't think a one off repro would have been that well done. The stamped frame particularly would be rather tough to make without a fair amount of tooling investment.
As for the lead/trailing trucks missing, they did make a variation of the 156 that did not have trucks at one point (late in the production years I believe) as mentioned by Steve. I understand that they're pretty rare, so I'm skeptical that yours was one of those vs one that simply lost its parts over the years. Without having documentation from previous owners to describe what was done, there's no real way of knowing. Regardless, it's a good looking locomotive.
If you ever pop the shell off, I'd be interested in seeing whether or not it has the period correct motor block vs a later replacement. That would be a bit more telling of what might have been done during the restoration.