On page 55 of the November CTT there is a picture of one of the original sets. The set in the picture has a red N&W hopper with yellow lettering car unlike any of the others described. Jim’s (njalb1) first post shows both the girls and boys sets that were produced in the 2001-2002 timeframe. The photos in that post showing the casting on top of the 1991 catalog show the set made at that time. As far as the tender shape goes the 1991 version has the 1130T semi streamline version that most of the 1957 version have (look at the catalog under the casting). The set made in 2001 has the 6026 Santa Fe style tender. It is somewhat hard to believe that the blue engine going to be marketed to boys when the rest of the line already was. Could it be that they started looking at pastel colors and decided that blue was more associated with boys as mentioned above?
Steve