My dad’s friend has been looking for a Hiawatha’s streamlined 4-4-2 class A for HO. He said that he saw one at a hobby shop near our houses before it closed. He has been looking since then. Then, one of my dad’s friend went by one of the hobby shops by his house and the guy there said that it was never made for HO. Does anyone know if it was made or not? Also, if it was made, anyone know were to find it?
Rivarossi made a rather crude model of a Milwaukee class A 4-4-2 in the 50’s. There’s one for sale on eBay. http://tinyurl.com/yzpzx2 Current bid is over $220.
Overland’s made one in brass as here: http://www.brasslocomotive.com/images/trains/OMI-1463.jpg . Price is a bit stiff at $1095.
There’s one on eBay http://cgi.ebay.com/Overland-Model-Milwaukee-Road-A-4-4-2-Painted_W0QQitemZ140042376333QQcmdZViewItem with a current bid of about $662 with just under 3 days left to go.
There’s an unpainted one on eBay, too: http://tinyurl.com/wbwps . Current bid is $512.00.
I think there was at least one other brass manufacturer who made a Milwaukee A. The name that comes to mind is Nickel Plate Products, but I could be dead wrong on that.
Hope this helps.
Andre
You’re right, Nickle Plate brought one in years (decades?) ago. It was unpainted and had NKP’s typical (bad) mechanism but it was well proportioned. I bought one on Ebay custom painted (fair) for a price I don’t recall now but it would have had to be in the $200 to $300 range or I wouldn’t have gotten it. I remotored and regeared it W/ NWSL parts and it runs great and pulls amazingly well (probaby due to having a monster slug of lead directly over the drivers). One of these days I’ll get around to repainting it and it will be a welcome addition to the roster.
To get a good prototypical Milwaukee 4-4-2 or a 4-6-4, you are going to have to go the brass route. If I modelled Milwaukee I would have had to have one many years ago, just like I did get an N&W J. For my money the Milwaukee streamlined steamers, especially the F-7, were likely the fastest steam locomotives ever to run, regardless of what Guiness says. I personally think the F-7 was a good looking engine as well. With what the older and inaccurate Rivarossis are fetching on eBay these days i am surprised BLI or someone hasn’t jumped on this one in a model. Good luck.
The NKP Products Hiawatha was their first offering in 1972. The Hiawatha project was started by NWSL and NKP Products sort of outbid NWSL on it. They initially imported painted A class 4-4-2, painted 3 car original Hiawatha trains, and a painted extra coach. Unpainted A class engines followed. The ‘factory’ paint job was not that good and I strippede/repainted my set. The engine ran good, but was very light and I added a lot of Cerrosafe weight to the boiler so it could pull the 4 car train I had over the club layout.
Jim