0055

[HEdward]

Way back when I was a tiny young person, Mom and Dad bought me a set of Lionel HO scale trains.  The engine is a "little husky" M&StL 4 wheel switcher #0055.  I recently googled the M&StL to see if I could find out the particulars of this engine but if isn't on the rooster I found.  Was Lionel taking creative license or was this model based on an actual locomotive?   

[tomikawaTT]

Lionel didn't merely have a creative license, they also had their passport stamped with several visas to LaLa Land!  Other than their pre-WWII Hudson (which really was an accurate model of a NYC locomotive,) the prototype fidelity of anything with a Lionel label had to be taken with a grain of salt the approximate size of Mount Everest.

Chuck (who gave up Lionel for HO after learning how accurate the Lionel 'O27' 2-4-2 was)

[HEdward]

It's 1960s era Lionel HO!  I thought that would be past their creative era and not in that scale with the rocket launchers and automatic cattle cars.  So, was this type of loco ever real?  Forty years old and runs well even with a broken axel. 

[tomikawaTT]

It was a long-standing Lionel practice to use their catalog number as the road number on their rolling stock.  I believe that carried on into their HO period.

Chuck

[HEdward]

Well, I guess that the M&StL never had any four wheel diesel switchers.  It's forty years old and proudly displayed.  Silly Lionel making scale models of fictional locos.