"Ironically the fantasy Daylight AC 12 was lettered for Lines. Lionel will always stay a toy train maker.
Pete"
Pete, I'm going to have to disagree with the Lionel/toy train maker statement, I'm afraid. Lionel models like the AC-9 (and they have made many) are exquisite representations of the real thing, and nothing about it is a "toy". I have a substantial collection of steamers - brass and die-cast - and Lionel's (and MTH's) stands up to anyone's. Better than most.
Flawless? Of course not. I was 12 in 1960, and was switching from my Lionel layout to HO; I was reading MR and RMC and the "road tests" of those expensive (har - $75!) brass steamers, and I remember the inaccuracies there, too. Flawless? No; they - their modern equivalents - still aren't. I re-joined the hobby in my 40's - typical - and I re-joined as an "O-gauge Hi-railer" (I build/weather/bash). HO is fine, but too small - not to see or appreciate (heck - I like N scale, too) but too small to make me want it. The O-scale stuff wants to get in the car with me.
Lionel does indeed make toys - and their catalogue has a section for those products. But such as the AC-9? Hardly. If that (and the Mohawks and the Hudsons and the Duplexes...you name it) is from a "toy train maker", then we need more of these "toy" makers.
The Daylight AC-9? Oh, my, no - I'll never buy one. But I do get the joke.