Well, the arrival is finally in sight for me. Legacy Station received my AR S1 this week, and it's on its way to me now. It's been a LOONNNG 1.5-year wait, but I'm glad to have what may be a very rare model (see below). For posterity and future reference, here's what happened according to Ryan over at Lionel:
- 35 or so American Railroad liveries were ordered, so this is a very limited run and I'd imagine that it could be considered a somewhat rare find in the future
- The only model to be affected by this paint issue was the AR version.
- The engines and tenders arrived in North Carolina with all of the other S1 liveries and a spot inspection revealed that the factory lettered the tenders of the American Railroads model as "American Railroad". The 2020v2 catalog had this same typo, and presumably the factory didn't realize it was a typo and went with it. Ryan and his team inspected, found the issue, and made the decision to "make it right" and incur a delay rather than kick these units out to the dealers.
- The tenders were express shipped back to the factory in Korea and were re-lettered.
- The tenders shipped in a container along with the Legacy Mohawks back to Lionel and arrived Feb 2022.
And now we know the rest of the story. ;-)
While some of the luster of getting the S1 has worn away by now (everyone else and their brother has seen them on YouTube or at shows), and that really stinks, as Marty said, it's great that Lionel opted to fix this rather than just let it slide; I know that I would have been really frustrated had they just left me with the incorrect lettering.
The only thing I wish Lionel would have done differently, frankly, is to have come out and posted something on their website or sent a bulletin to their dealers. I had to make a concerted effort to figure out what precisely happened, and it would have been nice to have had Lionel reach out proactively. While it was good that Ryan gave some updates on the Trainworld events, not everyone may have been watching. That's my only constructive criticism.
As it is, I'm glad that the engine is accurate and that it is on its way; I can't wait to get it railed.
Rafi