@gunrunnerjohn posted:I think the potential knock on the 4-6-6T is the gearbox design, it appears to be the old K-Line design that has been very troublesome. It may survive just fine, there's no reason that layout can't be robust, it's just that previous examples of Legacy locomotives with a similar gearbox have been less than stellar.
I don't have the the 4-6-6T (its not Santa Fe 
), but I do have the K-Line Santa Fe 2-8-4 T1b Berkshire locomotive #4198 and the Lionel Legacy T1b Berkshire locomotive #4199. Lionel obtained the molds from K-Line for the T1b model.
The K-Line version has a RS385PH motor facing forwards in the smokebox and there is a worm pressed onto the motor shaft. The worm engages directly to a large worm wheel which is pressed on a axel with drive wheels pressed onto each end of the axel. Thus, the K-Line has a single worm/worm wheel drive of the locomotive.
The Lionel has a large Cannon motor (roughly RS540 size) in the firebox. The motor is connected to the drive shaft with a universal connection. The drive shaft has a worm which engages a worm wheel which is pressed onto an axel which rests in two oilite sintered bronze bushings. The rest is pretty much as photos show above. It appears the Lionel goes through an extra gear reduction vs. the K-Line. From what I have read, Lionel received a lot of praise since the Lionel drive mechanism is much superior to that of the K-Line. Lionel had to do extensive changes to the chassis to do what they did with the drive mechanism.
From what I can tell from the photos, it would appear that the Lionel version kept the RS385 sized motor for the 4-6-6T (however, not all motors are created equally and Lionel may very well be using a higher quality motor than what K-Line used) and put in extra gear reduction. The extra gear reduction would take the work load off of the motor allowing for smoother operation.
Thus, it would appear that the Lionel mechanism is not the same as the K-Line mechanism even though the both use a RS385 size motor mounted in the smokebox.
