Steam guy - the story of these PAs cannot be condensed into a post. The first ones were done in secret, for Alco, entirely sand cast, then polished, plated, and presented in Warbonnet at the Waldorf Astoria with the real thing, at an Alco party/ceremony.
Some 600 more were produced for O Scalers - Adams did the casting.
Much later, Bob Smith converterd to lost wax and etchings. All the noses on his later etched Diesels are lost wax. Somebody screwed up badly on the PA - it is too short, not tapered, and as you point out, the windshield is about twice as high as it should have been. The trucks were exquisite, and accurate.
Sunset, Lionel, MTH, and Key have all raised the bar - they are all dead-accurate, when compared to either CLW version. They are even more accurate than Overland. Too bad most of them are plastic. I converted two MTH PAs to metal.
