Stuff I like – Modern Era no. 1 (MTH no. 1101 4-8-2 Mohawk)

MTH's traditionally-sized (O-27) no. 1101 New York Central 4-8-2 from 1995.

The first number that went through my head was “A couple of hundred.” Then I decided to find out for sure and the number even surprised me: 591 locomotives, pieces of rolling stock, accessories, and the occasional kit. So far.

Wow. But that got me thinking to the very first review I did – and it wasn’t for Classic Toy Trains, but for The Switcher, magazine of the Lionel Operating Train Society.

Back in the early 90s I unpacked my childhood trains. Although to my surprise the locomotives still worked after a three-decade slumber, it wasn’t long until I decided I needed some new locomotion. I quickly added a starter set (a Lionel no. 1735WS New York Central Flyer set powered by a no. 18632 4-4-2) and later a diesel set (Lionel no. 18908 New York Central FA A-B) and was soon looking for another way to expand the fleets – both locomotion and freight cars. I didn’t need more track or a transformer, but wanted more “stuff.”

At the time, MTH was still fairly new to the market and they were offering two outfits without track or transformers – freight for the Santa Fe and New York Central. To this day, I think the rolling stock was solidly built, but a bit on the plain side. The locomotive?

Can you say Hubba-hubba?

When picking it up, I recalled something that former CTT staffer Jim Bunte wrote in a review of a set (CTT, March 1993) from K-Line that featured a repop of a Marx no. 333 steam locomotive. He called the review “That postwar feel” and to me, the MTH set’s 4-8-2 certainly qualified by that measure.

It was heavy, had a solid feel to, and it had a very nice die-cast metal tender. It looked great, it was flawless in operation, there were no complex electronics to speak of (it was pre-ProtoSound and only had a whistle), and it could pull all the cars I could get on my small layout without the locomotive hitting the caboose.

The model just had one shortfall that revealed itself after some time of operation: A weak tender coupler. I debated the glue option, but instead installed an appropriately New York Central-like jade green rubber band on the coupler. A sharp-eyed observer can see locomotive and rubber band on page 111 of the November 1997 issue of CTT.

It is also what would be called a traditional sized model. Not a problem then or now, but requiring a bit of stagecraft if operating today.

It was a go-to engine for many years until my freight car fleet had many more larger, scale-sized cars in it than 6464-sized cars. It was then placed on the reserve roster, awaiting the day when it will be needed to haul munitions trains when the inevitable war with the HO guys comes about ­– and you know it will!

So this was the model that made this hobby more than a passing fancy, a trip down the nostalgic Christmas Tree Lane of years past – and one which held out promise of many new and amazing things ahead in O gauge and lots of  “stuff to buy.”

And yes, operators were standing by.