My early 1946 Lionel Berkshire arrives

Here's one I worked on for a friend it does not have the high stack motor. I have never seen a high stack thanks for posting your photos. Enjoy your Berk great piece of Lionel history.

This one is missing it marker lights but runs great.

Very nice. That loco is right up there with the 700e as Lionel’s finest effort.

What handsome engines you two have! The Berkshires (w/metal trailing truck) are my all time favorite Lionel PW steam engines. So massive looking and WONDERFULLY proportioned. Lionel knocked it out of the park on that engine!

Andre

@artfull dodger posted:

Wanted one of these for awhile, the early double worm drive Berk with the huge high stack motor for display layout use and the huge diecast whistle tender.  Got this really clean one for a really good price, has the box for the locomotive, looks to have seen very little actual use.  Got in a short run after my shift before my wife headed to bed.  Very smooth with the typical spur gear growl.  Love it, the slower spur gear drive is perfect on a smaller layout.   AD

Love those engines, I have the later 1947 version. Looks like yours is in very nice shape. Congrats!

Congrats on you "46" model Berk in my humble opinion this engine is a great runner as i have 2 of them and a 3rd for parts along with a spare motor and some wheel sets bought long time ago NOS !

On our small 4x8 layout with layout lights turned down way low that particular bulb smoke unit is fantastic when running slow as it actually looks like a flickering white flame coming out its stack unlike any other smoke unit i have and i have quite a collection of various smoking engines.

Ours has the regular not the high stack motor but it will run a solid hour with the rollers only warm to the touch.

This is one of Lionels best postwar engines indeed and thanks for showing that high stack motor that was basically used on dealer displayed layouts because they can run and run and run because of its larger field  construction.

They are hard to find as a separate buy and at 150.00 (have seen them) i may never be able to purchase that motor to install if found.

Here are ours one stripped of paint long ago because paint was very bad but never painted it as i like the look believe it or not but will one day will try to polish it as is to see if it evens out the finish the front and rear truck retain original decent finish.

Edit also have several 671 and 2020 1946 models with smoke bulb and also great runners not shown motors are similar except the gear on motor end is larger and thus would not fit the 726.

Indeed, all are truly Lionel Die Cast Masterpieces.

Replacing missing marker lights should pose no problem.  Seems they come up missing on millions of postwar steam locomotives, including my old 2-4-2.  No biggie though.  I sold my Lionel in 1962 to help finance my entrance into HO.  Regrets?  None.  You just move on and bury the past.

I am planning to eventually pickup a spare boiler face to give the Nickel Plate treatment to with the flying number boards and second Mars light above the stock headlight.   I like the speed range on the early Berks better, and I trace that design to the more scale tangent that Lionel was on in the Prewar era.  But kids wanted faster models and Lionel wanted to cut costs, and fit the new style smoke unit, hence the retool with the slanted motor drive that likes to eat up side rods with lots of use.  I am hunting the red brush plate with the removeable tubes(can only find the fixed tube version at present), to give the motor inside the cab some more "bling"   AD

I sold one years ago for $200, it had a bent cab roof but otherwise was good. I still cry everytime I think about it. The only other engine to get that big tender was the scale Hudson until a Fundimensions engine had it.

I have the same drive train in my 46 turbine. Always wanted the berk as well.

While much more labor intenstive to work on and service, the early Berk is a work of engineering art!  To me it shows a bit of confusion and indecision on which direction Lionel was going to head with the higher end O gauge engines in the first full year of production of the Postwar era.  The drive is more scale like in terms of speed range and ability to run slowly and smoothly.  Not to say a later version isnt smooth, but they are more prone to stall in the tighter curves at slow/prototypical yard speeds.  The Berk is definitely a bit of a crossover between the prewar push to more scale like trains and speeds, and the toy train size locomotives of the Postwar era. Thanks for all the comments.  If anybody is looking for one of these, Trainworld out in NY has a small postwar collection up for sale on their site and there is an early Berk, along with other engines and cars for sale there.      AD

And its not so much the rollers getting hot that was the issue, it was the motor itself overheating on long running display layouts.  Running hot thins and and breaks down the lubrication for the motor's shaft bushings.  The high stack develops more torque and runs cooler, along with having extra time spend line boring the snout bushings and balancing the armature itself.  Engines good for hot rollers are dual motored F3's pulling a heavy load for any decent length of time that haven't been properly serviced in awhile.  Sucking lots of amps thru 2 rollers is a quick way to heat them up!    AD

"I am planning to eventually pickup a spare boiler face to give the Nickel Plate treatment to with the flying number boards and second Mars light above the stock headlight. "

I have been wanting to add the same for a Lionel and also an MTH. Where are you planning to get the parts? I haven't found the parts to fit.

You can get brass Lima style flying number boards from P&D hobbies.  Sadly, no one currently offers the proper shaped Mars light as a casting, either in brass or plastic or even 3d printed that I can find.  I was just going to use a brass headlight casting and shelf as a stand in.  I looked all over Shapeways for a correct Mars light.  I wish Lionel offered that as a seperate sale part from the UP FEF or the last run of the NKP Berks, I think those had the proper tapered light body for the steam engine style Mars light.    Only Mars castings out there for steam is the CB&Q dual beam version.     AD

I buy the new stuff but I love looking at the makeup of these old workhorses. Truly they were made to be bulletproof. Nice buy. Enjoy and surely it will still be running generations from now.

I just got one of these not long ago, serviced it and put in a smoke bulb from Jeff Kane. Runs well. Before I put the bulb in, I ran it and the smoke still came out! Nothing wrong must have been residual smoke powder on the frame. Works and runs at scale speeds, as one of the other members said, works well on a small layout.

@artfull dodger posted:

And its not so much the rollers getting hot that was the issue, it was the motor itself overheating on long running display layouts.  Running hot thins and and breaks down the lubrication for the motor's shaft bushings.  The high stack develops more torque and runs cooler, along with having extra time spend line boring the snout bushings and balancing the armature itself.  Engines good for hot rollers are dual motored F3's pulling a heavy load for any decent length of time that haven't been properly serviced in awhile.  Sucking lots of amps thru 2 rollers is a quick way to heat them up!    AD

I’m still comparing the pictures above. What the difference between hi stack and not? What do you look at to tell the difference?

The red highlighted is a high stacked with more individual laminations in the motor field, 24 versus 16, from what I count.

Recently on the bay site i seen a few listing for a 1946 lionel motor that fits the 671,2020 726.

Someone looking for a 726 motor would be disappointed because those listed 1946 year 671 motors have the large gear which definitely will not fit the 726 frame .

Look at the picture above poster and the tunnel at the end of the motor where the gear end goes thru the 671 gear will not fit as i tried one day out of curiosity.

I have several 1946  671 turbines not converted to the updated back then smoke unit they run nice but like running Berk a little more.

Hope this helps someone down the rails.

The armature is also different in a high stack vs a normal stack motor.  Its thickness matches the extra thick field set up.  Lionel also balanced them to a higher tollerance, along with line boring the motor bushings to assure straightness(like is done in a high quality auto engine rebuild). This assured an extra smooth, cool running motor to showcase the model and minimize break downs on a display layout that would see trains running for hours on each day, especially during the holiday selling season.    AD

Such a great engine. Almost had one. Reminds me of my dad and my start into O Gauge. When I inherited my grandfather's (mom's father's) postwar collection in 2002, my dad helped me get started setting everything up. He told me the collection lacked a Berk and I needed to have one, so we went down to the Trading Post Train Shop, my first meeting with Jim Berilla, with purpose of buying a 746. I was all conventional at that point, of course, and we looked at some of Jim's PW items, and I almost bought the 746 my dad wanted me to get (his favorite from his childhood). Then Jim introduced us to some modern conventional items with Railsounds. I walked out with a Lionel NKP Junior Berk and a Santa Fe FT Passenger set. I've since upgraded the Jr. Berk to TMCC and replaced the conventional single FT with AA's with TMCC.

Its never to late to own a postwar Berk, either the 726 or 736.   Last I looked, Trainworld out in NY has a small postwar collection up for sale on their website that has a early model 726 and a 736 Berkshire for sale.     AD