My dad had this particular model as part of a set that consisted of freight cars branded with Kellogg’s breakfast brands, such as corn flakes and Eggo waffles. Last winter, I found one of these locomotives on eBay, sold as “new in box”. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really had never been used, but unfortunately, the cab roof was loose, the horn was partly broken upon arrival, and the bell had completely broken off. Fortunately, all of the delicate railings were still intact. I’ve seen this model sold with black trucks and silver trucks, but I think the one my dad had featured black trucks, like this one.
It ran well out of the box, but I still removed the old grease and re-lubricated it. One other small problem the model had was that the original grease had been applied very heavily, and at one point it had started to leak out of the gears, and some of it made its way to the outer shell. No damage was caused to the paint job, it it did require some cleaning.
This was purchased to use for weathering practice. I originally also planned to replace the horn hook couplers with Kadee knuckle couplers, replace the bell and horn, add a light to the rear headlight and possibly some additional details, but later decided the cheap model was not worth all that trouble. After weathering, I’ll just list it on eBay to recover what I spent on it and clear space in my closet.
