Thanks SGAUGIAN, I picked this up just before Christmas here in the UK along with a number of other Flyer items from a friends collection. I haven't done much to it so far but I started with removing the chassis on the engine to clean and rebuild it. When I ran it on a loop of track it was very erratic and would stall at slow speeds. I looked at the tender and realised that it didn't have any wiper pick-ups so I borrowed a couple from an old Atlantic tender chassis and it now picks up on two axles from each truck. I also put some 1mm spacers under the smoke unit so that the red plastic smoke tube now just sits in the body rather than under it. It could do with a better set of valve gear that is shiny as this set is a bit tired and not looking its best.
Thanks for the advice regarding the front light assembly, I have an old 310/312 chassis that I will see if the front light assembly can be used with some changes, otherwise it will be a complete new piece which will need to be fabricated. Like you I have looked at what else I can do with it later and I think to start with I will install a new can motor and an old Lionel reverse unit I have. At the moment it is hard wired for forward direction only. After that I will look to see if I can get an old Northern chassis for the wheels on eBay, lastly I might upgrade it to TMCC, depending on cost.
I also have a Budd? rail car that is from Tom, this again needs some attention as it doesn't run too well. The last item I have of Tom's is a 952 heavy weight car that I purchased to pad out my 5555 set. The colour is not exactly the same but it is pretty close.
The pictures below are not perfect but it should show what she looks like.
