Many or most of you Niagara Folk already know this minutiae, but here it is anyway.
The Niagara had very few changes during its brief time on this earth. Didn't need many, certainly. Most of us have noted the change in headlight from single-bulb to the twin-beam modern type, added later. #6000, the first, also had a sightly different trailing truck and smoke deflectors, and some internal differences.
Headlights aside, I noted that Lionel modeled their loco after the "as built" iteration, and MTH modeled theirs after the later version.
Here is my Vision Line Niagara. Just opened it a couple of days ago. I do know that many do not like, or even understand, the Pilot versions of locomotives, but, apparently there are enough of us who do that Lionel keeps offering them. I still need the PRR S-1 6-4-4-6 in a Pilot; it looks like a spaceship, anyway. But, I digress.
Lionel - the original Niagara generator/dynamo location:
MTH - it's gone (I see a difference in details and the power reverse, upper right - did NYC change these, too? Must look in the Niagara book.)
MTH - dynamo now on fireman's side above the drivers; less chance of ice/snow/water/grime getting in the turbine and the wiring:
Lionel - note the brass bell just under the pilot way down at track level; original location:
MTH - bell now in a hanger above the valve gear on engineer's side. I read that the original location allowed the bell to become full of ice and muck and the clapper couldn't move:
Very important stuff, this.
The original dynamo/bell locations sort of surprise me - seems like common sense to get them up and out of the way of the track-level grime, ice and so on.
