I remember buying the Lionel (MPC) 8307 Southern Pacific Daylight around 1983. Up to that point, the vast majority of steamers available from Lionel were black - Henry Ford would have approved. In the MPC era, we suddenly had a number of colorful choices, but the Daylight really jumped out to me.
Connecting the cable from the engine to the tender was a pain, but the whistle and Mighty Sound of Steam was, at the time, state of the art and pretty spectacular. Being less than scale, it could run on the most common O and O-27 track of the day, unlike my new Legacy version. Like it’s post war predecessors, instead of a detailed cab, all you see is the head of the motor. Unlike the NKP Berkshire, the Daylight’s tender is plastic.
Compared to the current Legacy version, the MPC Daylight looks small, but fit nicely with much of the available freight and passenger offerings of the time.
And when you examine the detail, clearly, in some respects, we’ve come a long way!!!
