JC Penneys Lionel Berkshire,repaint, or resell?

[mpzpw3]

After Christmas last year, I purchased a Lionel starter set B&O Berkshire at discounted pricing, with free shipping. It is a beautiful O-27 engine, with railsounds. I love the sounds, wi***here was some smoke output from the smoke unit, but what do you do? The real question, however, is , the B&O doesn't fit in with my Santa Fe themed layout. Should I try and sell the engine, and replace it with the Lionel Santa Fe version, available as a recent train set engine, and seperately, without the set, or should I repaint the engine. I'm sort of a collector and operator, and do enjoy repainting things, but I am a little wary of repainting such a beautiful engine. What would you do?

[spankybird]

I would either pick up another engine (SF) or just a tender or tender shell with SF on it.

But if your good at painting, why not..

[Big_Boy_4005]

Was this a regularly catalogued set or something special Lionel did for Penny's??

I'm thinking from the prespective of future collectability value. Even if it is only a starter set, it might be wise to leave it alone. I'm not sure how into post war you are, but generally speaking, some of the special run stuff for department stores ended up being highly sought after, and hence rather pricy.

[mpzpw3]

I paint airplanes for a living right now (Darned job, it takes time away from train running). I can do a nice repaint on the engine, and do it the way I want it ( red oxcide cab roof, and silver boiler front.), but lettering is a problem. The other problem is, it came with a nice display base and cover, and it is Lionel (collector in me). I would LOVE for someone to come up and say that the B&O is their favorite railroad and they must have this engine (I would probably let them have it for next to nothing). To put this in perspective, I hate to see someone repaint a set of New York Central 2243 F-3s into another roadname, even if they are in bad condition. I don't really care if the engine is worth something, but I care about the history of it.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Display base and cover is an indication of an uncatalogued collectable. I have a few of the diesels from Penny's done in the early 90's.

I worked in a hobby store back in the early 80's, and my boss went to Penny's and bought a bunch of the 8006 ACL Silver Shadow Hudsons. They didn't sell much better for him than they did for Penny's. Last year's Greenberg Pocket Guide has it listed for $520. That's about double if I remember correctly.

It does make me wonder about the investment value of trains.

[3railguy]

My feelings are you should be able to sell the engine at a fair used price if it's a set only engine and JC Penny special to boot. It will probably cost you to do this if you buy the SF version new. So painting isn't a bad option. This is not a $500 engine so repainting it is not something I would spend a lot of time pondering over. I'd just do it. Maybe add some weathering and extra detail while you're at it.

[Anonymous]

Dear mpzpw3,
Let me take a look at this from a different perspective. This locomotive is out of place in a group of Santa Fe locomotives. Or is it????

The B&O and AT&SF existed in the same world for a century. In that time, they formed interchange agreements, and even run-through passenger cars.

I have seen pictures of SP locomotives on the Yosemite Valley Railway.

I have seen a locomotive formerly of the UP, owned by NREX, running on former-SP track (Tehachapi).

I have seen numerous pictures of Santa Fe locomotives on the Pennsy.

I have seen a GTW GP-9 in the middle of Idaho.

Chances are, that at some point in history, a B&O locomotive found its way onto the Santa Fe.

So is it really all that out of place?

I hope I have helped,
Daniel