Hey Mike,
You’ve got a real pretty engine on your hands! Congratulations! You might want to check hennings for a new pickup. I’d be very, very careful with messing with the zinc parts of this loco. As they can be very fragile and let’s just say… frustrating to repair. It looks as if the wheels and trucks have already been replaced. Not really that big of a deal for most collectors except those who want a pure original. Keep in mind that the best way to check and see if something is truly original or not is to see how clean those parts are. For example, if your engine has original wheels, typically they should be ware and dull. In other words it should show mileage. Those wheels look fairly new to me. I can’t tell you for certain if the paint is original original or not on your loco… but it does look a bit clean for its age. Remember that sometimes people only repaint certain areas to make the engine look better. The paint on the boiler looks pretty original. The best way to test that out would be to use a black light to see if the paint is factory or not. From what I understand, Black lights will tell you if the paint is lead based or not. If it’s not, it’s been tampered with. The tender does look a hint restored too. And The cowcatcher looks quite clean for a area that typically would have a majority of the scratches. Keep in mind these are all just opinions of mine, not facts. So take it with a grain of salt. There’s a wealth of information and smart folks on this forum, so hopefully you’ll get some good ideas and news on here.
Trainfam
