As big fan of Chapelon, Porta and all his disciples, Wardale in particular, i would love to have this locomotive. Alas I would never be able to afford one new. Lately I have been concentrating on updating some of my older equipment and scooping up some good looking ps1 engines o be updated later.
As to paint scheme I think it would be wide open. Given the timeframe the C&O 614 trials were done in, I am thinking of the current class ones along with Conrail, (maybe bnsf if you could make it run on powder river basin coal). If you just want to go with whatever strikes you than I would say Erie, P&WV, or Milwaukee would all look good. I could also see a WM fireball scheme on the flanks.
This locomotive would have stood a half decent chance at production if oil prices had remained sky-high. In the current market it would be doubtful at best. When you factor in the stress load on the track from big drivers its almost a guaranteed no-go for the real thing, but as for a model I still think it would be pretty cool. Interestingly enough it would be a loco that you could easily change to run off liquefied natural gas by hooking up a tank car for a tender, or switch back to coal, simply based on lowest dollar fuel availability.
