@Ukaflyer posted:If I had to pick one it would have to be the K5, only because I have more Hudson’s than K5’s. Hudson’s seemed to be more popular over here for some reason. I know Lionel have the tooling for the Hudson but did any bits survive into the Lionel era for the K5?
The tooling for the K5 and the 0-8-0 was showing signs of decline with the 21115's and 21145's from 1958. When Lionel opted to reintroduce the Northern, they quickly found that the old tools would not make a satisfactory product and had to retool almost the whole model (the only carried over piece was the pilot casting). I doubt that the old Hudson tool is much better. Please recall that much of the Gilbert die cast boiler tooling (except for the New Haven Pacific) dates from the late 1930's. All-new tooling would likely be required for a desirable result.
Bob
