Prototype 2-4-2's

Here's one:

(Image from Wikipedia, BLW builder's photo.)

The CB&Q also had one, #590 Classed N1 (Dig that three axle tender!):

(Image from "Steam Locomotives of the Burlington Route" c.1960)

Built by Baldwin in 1895, the 590 was rebuilt into a 4-4-2 in 1905.

Rusty

How aout the Marx 666, which smokes like the BEAST!

Where did the Q get that tender?  Hogwarts?

Ah-hah...Thanks!!  That Burlington one with the 3 axle tender is the one I'd seen before....but forgotten.  That ACL one I've never before seen, but it has its own

quirks with pilot and trailing truck wheels almost as big as the drivers, and a tender on arch bar trucks which dates it back in time. The Burlington one, delivered in 1895, must have made it into the twentieth century, in some kind of service..branch line or commuter and it doesn't have tiny truck wheels, either.....but that just makes two or a very few to have spawned all the train sets with those wheel arrangements down through the years.  I kinda like that ACL one, good thing nobody offers a model of it.

Here's the prototype for the Marx 666.....

USRA light 2-4-2

Now, that's just plain evil!

Rusty

The genesis of Lionel's Columbia was the uncatalogued #204, circa 1940.  This was the pattern for all of the "Scouts" right up to the present day.

I agree with Andy.  The inspiration for this boiler design was probably the USRA light Mikado.  Like the Mikados, the Scouts were plentiful, workaday engines that put in thousands of "ton-smiles" of service before they were displaced on most of our railroads by bigger, newer power.  The wheel arrangement may not be realistic, but the overall lines do a good job representing mainstream 20th century steam.  And these locos can negotiate the sharpest curves, which translates into more action in a small space.

For the last 15 years I've bought mostly scale trains, and can definitely appreciate accurately modeled prototypes.  But the generic design of the Lionel and Marx Scouts mean that they can be ANY loco, with a little imagination, and I hope imagination isn't something not lost on today's hobbyists!