My point in an earlier post.? The other pioneer Omnicon was the Erie 4-6-0.? I saw both of them in the display case at K-Val in Buffalo in the 1980's and vaguely thought about them.? The list price wasn't bad—somewhat more than a comparable HO brass import, about the same as a similar O scale small steamer.? Just as?

I noticed with appreciation some Oriental brass EMD switchers at a north Texas train show ca. 2004 but didn't act on that itch for another ten years or so.

I still maintain that Charles Sandisfield didn't choose a really good prototype for the 4-6-0; my problem is not that it was Erie, but that it was not a very common Erie prototype, used mostly in commuter service, and all scrapped relatively early.? There are LOTS of more attractive and typical 4-6-0's from which to choose.? If not the V&T Baldwins (which PFM sold many runs of in HO), probably their A&LM more modern one would have been my suggestions.? While I would not have necessarily picked the MP for the 2-8-0, it is a more characteristic mid-size representation.? At least he started with smaller locomotives, which tend not to be made commercially as often as the big road engines.? Some considerable discussion of the situation in the magazines a generation or two ago: consensus seemed to be that buyers want more locomotive for expensive purchases, but it costs almost as much in design and labor to make a small locomotive as an eight-coupled or articulated—just that there is an understandable mental resistance to paying nearly as much for a small locomotive as a big one.

The matter is a pipe-dream now, as it is unlikely we shall ever see any more commercial brass steam in S scale.