Don McErlean posted:OK I guess this is my day for posting to this thread...thanks to everyone who got this back from "Miscellaneous" it is now where it belongs. Today was my first chance to experiment with some items I got off the bay. The first of these is a 1939 (as best I can date it) passenger set that is identified in the Greenberg AF Prewar O- Gauge book as being set 301 from 1939. It is an unusual reference and it seems to imply that it was the only set that used this group of cars and loco. The engine & tender were listed as type 403 although the engine carries the number 401 below the cab window and the tender is separately shown as type 402. It is a 2-4-2 sheet metal boiler with brass trim. The tender and everything else has type X couplers (a rather odd knuckle type that does not open). The cars are (using the nomenclature in the book) Type (E) Enameled Cars that were uncatalogued but were listed by AF as number 235 for the Pullman, 234 for the Baggage and 236 for the observation. The distinction appears to lie in the decals applied to the sides. So anyway here are some pictures (by the way it does run and rather well).
Don,
Don't jinx this thread, I don't believe it was ever moved. However, the weekend thread was moved.
I have the same set, but with a different engine/tender. Mine came with a gunmetal gray 401 with nickel trim and a gray streamline type tender.
The tender, which is original, has unusual decals, as this tender should typically have the large PRR Billboard decal. I can only guess that they ran out of the billboard decals the day this tender was labeled.
I believe the gray 401 with nickel trim is a late engine, as in 1940 Gilbert began using nickel trim on the black 401 engines.
NWL
