Ok. I recently purchased this unit from Justrains at the Allentown, PA show. 
The catalog pictures do NOT do this unit Justice. This unit has what appears to be the correct Dark blue underframe trucks, fuel tank, and pilots.
Compared to the Prototype pics found on the web:
The MTH version is much closer to the Weaver version produced several years ago. The MTH version does have the following:
- Separate Grab rails
- Working Marker Lights [incorrect green LED's on the front nose though]
- correct slanted "Conrail" font on the long hood
- correct Signal box on the front walkway on the engineers side
- correct Hyatt bearing end caps on the truck front
- close enough placement of stars on the cab front, cab sides, and long hood.
- New Ps3 electronics- YEah-no more battery!
Some of the discrepencies I found were:
- Uses incorrect GP38-2 body instead of a more correct GP38 body
- Cooling fans are further apart on the 1:1 than the model [due to the use of the 38-2 body]
- model uses the incorrect GP40 large fuel tank than the 1:1 [the 1:1 had a medium size fuel tank]
- dynamic brake blister is too flat - found on later GP38-2 locomotives [due to the use of the 38-2 body]
Overall though the discrepancies are minimal on this MTH unit. For Conrail fans who want a reasonable looking unit of this rare Conrail Bicentennial GP38, this would be it.
Now all of us Conrail fans just need the "ho hum" simple dip Blue paint job with "Conrail" on the sides as found in the 80's and 90's or maybe an "operation Lifesaver unit"
to round out our O gauge Conrail fleets!
