This will show up later this week in What's new at Burnsland.com (aka The Section No One Reads), but I thought I would highlight it here, too.

This Lionel train belonged to my grandfather. He had the engine, tender, and caboose. Pretty cool. You can read more about it and see it larger at the Burnsland Blog by clicking the photo:


My Grandfather's Train

That's a wonderful interest to share with your grandfather.

The tender trucks appear to be stamped steel, with plated journals. This dates it to the prewar or early WWII period. This locomotive, as you point out, was also made after the war. To me, one of the more interesting things about these locomotives is the prewar use of plastic for the tender shells.

I would be interested in finding out a little more about when it was made. I was mainly going by the information on this page: 1666 Prairie Steam Engine 1946 & 1947, as well as family memories. I can take more pictures if needed.

According to McComas & Tuohy and the TCA book, the 1666E was introduced in gunmetal grey in 1938. Because yours is black, has a 1666 (no E) cab plate, and has a plastic 2224 tender, it dates from 1940-42. This assumes the engine actually is contemporaneous with the tender. One other production distinction may help: prewar engines have squared-off cab deck rears, whereas (most) postwar cab deck rears are curved.

I'd be happy to look at additional pictures. Is there a suspicion that your grandfather backdated a postwar engine with prewar trucks and couplers? This sort of thing, and the reverse, was not uncommon.

No, I would suppose that he just bought the whole thing as a set at one time. I wouldn't think he was the kind to tinker with it. He would just set it up and run it.

Beautiful photo, Steve. It kind of misdirected me, thought, because it got me thinking of my Grandfather's train. He worked for Salem Power, in Salem, MA> as the yard supervisor. One of his favorite duties was to run the ex-B&M 4-4-0 they used to switch coal cars into the plant. From time to time he would leave the plant and head out to the B&M yard to pick up a string of cars if the "BIG" road couldn't deliver them on time. There was a picture (long since lost) that I saw as a kid with him in the cab with my Dad. I would kill to get that one back. It looked like a Brooks, if my memoy is correct, had the pilot removed, replaced with a wooden beam with really heavy poling pockets. She still looked good, though. What a great memory jog.

That's neat! Sometimes I wish my grandfathers and my great-grandparents were still around. I would love to hear all the stories they could tell.