02/28/2026
This is the second set of ARR Bicentennial locomotives in my roster. Some of you know my original custom painted Lionel set I had made alongside another set for a friend. We went through a lot of hoops to get them made. Getting into 3D printing, custom made decals and other things. My set unfortunately fell in the Earthquake of Nov 2018. I was heartbroken. Scratched paint and cracked shells, it was horrible! But the painter, for as many times as we butted heads over issues, he offered to replace the cracked shells and repaint them at no cost. The crown jewels of my collection were back!
Then this year I found that Dixie Station was doing a custom run of both locomotives, 1510 & 1512, on MTH locomotives. So both my friend and I, even though we both had our custom made sets, we had to have them!
For me, I'm a life long Alaskan, I remember when I was a kid and the originals came out in 1976 for the Bicentennial along with their matching caboose. The railroad was owned by the Federal Government back in those days, later they gave the railroad to the state of Alaska. The Federal Government paid to have the two locomotives and their caboose painted in Red White and Blue colors with stars and stripes. They were stunning and for us as kids, it was big time to see them running the rails. Dad used to keep us busy watching trains when we were on the highway in the places the tracks were visible, making us look for either locomotives and or the caboose.
Years later the ARR sold them and they moved south, California, then Wyoming then finally to Arizona and the Verde Canyon Railroad where they have another stunning paint job that suits them well. I've been down to visit them and ride with them. Something I never got to do in Alaska. They still have their original 1510 & 1512 numbers which makes an old Alaskan smile.
The details on these are spectacular. They follow the artist concept drawing pretty closely. That means the 1775 & 1776 number boards that eventually got updated to the 1510 & 1512 numbers. There is a lot of gold painted trim that was on the drawings, but they also got their Bicentennial medallions that we couldn't get made because we couldn't find any good artwork that we could use for the custom decals. Missing because they went by the artists concept drawings are the winterization hatches the had and the snowplows. They had those before the locomotives were painted so eventually i have some 3D printer projects to make the winterization hatches and to design and paint a new front pilot cover to have a snowplow and hoses. I had made a set for my older MTH Protosound F3 locomotives which came out great but those dont fit these locomotives. But that is not a hot item project.
These are fitting coming out in 2026 as its the 250th anniversiary of America!
