lionel double headed freight sets mpc /modern era

A bit recent is the 30145 Canadian Pacific RS-3 freight, comes with track and transformer. Think the track and transformer requirement narrows down the selection.  Certainly in the late 1980s / early 1990s were many collector sets that later had matching non-powered units available, but didn't come with track and transformer.

ed h posted:

A bit recent is the 30145 Canadian Pacific RS-3 freight, comes with track and transformer. Think the track and transformer requirement narrows down the selection.  Certainly in the late 1980s / early 1990s were many collector sets that later had matching non-powered units available, but didn't come with track and transformer.

just updated my post to include all double header sets even ones without track and transformer

Lionel 18505 Nickel Plate Road set. (Fallen Flag set#6)

There were only a very few sets that came with dual engines. As mentioned, add-on dummy engines were fairly common, but usually these dummy engines matched separate sale powered engines, which were not part of a set. It's very easy to make up sets, however, given the multitude of cars and cabooses that are available.

The Double Diesel set was cataloged for several years.

How about the 1974 Rio Grande 6-1450 set:

Many of the sets made by late MPC/Lionel Trains Inc. had premium sets with matching dummies available later on. These are easy to find at good prices now, even finding the matching dummy units. Most of the time the sets included SD40's and Dash 8's.

For example, this is Lionel 11705 Chessie Unit Train with the 18204 Dummy SD40 from 1988.

Also two others were the Burlington Northern and Canadian Pacific SD40 sets.....Paul