sadlerfan21 wrote:Hey guys! So the other day I was helping clean out my grandmother's house and came across this train set. It included a 490 Penn Central steam train with matching caboose and a Missouri Pacific System diesel with matching caboose. I found out some information about the steam train but searched for a couple hours trying to find anything about the diesel. I found nothing. So if any of you guys could tell me the name and when it was in service would be nice. Little facts would be cool too. Thanks!
Sadlerfan21 - I'm pretty well familiar with a wide range of the pre-2000 HO models that have come and gone in the hobby, but I don't recognize this one. My initial impression is that the item is simply a "toy train" of some nature and likely to be pretty much unidentifiable unless perhaps someone on the forums happens to have also owned an example at one time or another. The locomotive's appearance is similar to other inexpensive, perhaps imported, "Christmastime" toy train sets, sold during holiday seasons of years ago when similar-sized HO scale trains (and model trains in general) were widely popular with the general public. I say this because of the obviously crude execution of the locomotive's body, the fully exposed screw holding the body to the frame, the representation of the handrails without stanchions and many other such aspects.
If you truly wish to embark on an identity search for this loco's origins, I'd suggest perusing the "toys" section(s) of eBay. Over time everything seems to show up in its pages.
CNJ999