I recently purchased the Lionel J.C. Penneys Baltimore and Ohio berkshire locomotive at the special price. I will attempt to give a review, which should also include the other “baby berks” , except for paint. CTT did a review of this engine recently, and that review was pretty much right on. I will try and divide the review up into the following catagories: Shipping and boxing, overall appearance, and operation. For some reason I can’t paragragh here, so bear with me.
When the engine arrived, it was packaged with a display case, and the contents were well protected. The box was the usual curragated version. The display case was well protected, and the engine was in it’s own curragated box, also well protected. After opening the main shipping box, and opening the seperate display case box, and opening the engine box, I was greeted with the familar orange and creme Lionel box containing the engine. The engine is also contained in the famaliar styrofoam mold. Lionel was smart enough to give some blue ribbon “pull straps” to remove the engine. If they hadn’t, the engine would have been very hard to remove from the styrofoam. A+++ on shipping containers!! Very well protected!
Apperance: This engine is done in the blue and silver B&O color scheme. The color seems just a little bit heavily applied, but overall a beautiful engine. All details are easily seen, and the casting is remarkable. From a distance of 4 to 5 feet, the piping and extras seem to be added on, but they are cast, except for the handrails, with GREAT stanchions (much better than the postwar cotterpins), and a swinging bell on the front, done in gold. The drivers are also blue, with silver rims, and spoked. The tender, a perfect match for my postwar 2466WX tender, only with wire handrails, and in die-cast metal, is also blue, and detailing in the letters is crisp, and no flaws can be noted. The coal pile looks like real coal, so I can only say that the painting of the coal load is suburb.
Overall painting is great, and I would gi
Thanks for the review…not so a mini one.
well I still wait for my baby Berks included in the Santa Fe Super Freight set, it had been 2 month and counting…[:(].
Glad you like the engine as for the smoke issue it seem it’s a Lionel problem, based on other forum threads none of their steamer, even high end one produce a lot of it.
Mpzpw3,
I gave my boy the new Korean Lionel baby Pacific, and it looks like the same stuff as the baby Berkshire. In order to get heavy smoke out of that thing I have to hold the Smoke Boost Key on the Cab-1 for quite a while. I don’t know how it works in conventional mode, but I assume that the smoke unit has two TMCC settings. One for indoor use, and the other for club layout use? All and all, it’s a great engine for the price, and larger looking than I expected. I was surprised when I put that engine on the track for the first time. However, compared with some of the highly detailed engines, it’s a Plain Jane.
Richard