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Excellent low-end O gauge sets
As nice as the O-27 outfits were, the kids poring through a Lionel wishbook didn’t stop with them. They spent lots of time checking out the O gauge sets, believing that Lionel saved the best of its 1954 product line for further back in the book.
As with the O-27 offerings, things started sort of small, with a pair of worthwhile outfits priced at less than $50.
Outfit no. 2201WS came with a no. 665 small Hudson equipped with Magne-Traction, an operating whistle, and a smoke mechanism. The steamer was new, but everything else in this $39.95 set represented carryover inventory from the set with the same number cataloged in 1953: the nos. 6462 gondola, 6464-50 boxcar, 6465 double-dome tank car, and 6357 SP-type caboose.
The same number of freight cars went into set no. 2217WS, yet it retailed for $10 more. Why? Let’s start with the no. 682 Turbine cataloged with it. That new locomotive had Magne-Traction, smoke, and a whistle plus a no. 2046WX Pennsylvania RR tender. New as well were the nos. 6356 NYC stockcar, 6464-175 Rock Island silver boxcar, and 6417 Pennsy porthole caboose. Don’t forget the no. 3562-25 gray-painted operating barrel car.
The luckiest owners of this otherwise basic outfit found their operating barrel car had been given red (not blue) lettering, while their boxcar had black (not blue) lettering. Incidentally, the advance catalog specified the 6464-1 Western Pacific boxcar and not the Rock Island.
Jump to $59.95 to discover the next pair of outfits. Children had to select between the new no. 2219W five-car freight led by a no. 2321 Lackawanna Train Master. Only the nos. 6456-25 hopper and 6462-25 gondola (distinguished by their paints) set that outfit apart from its peers.
The second O gauge set retailing at slightly less than $60 was the no. 2221WS, a five-car freight nicknamed “The Diamond Express.” The no. 646 steam engine (another small Hudson) fit into the line quite well and easily pulled the five cars in this set, including the new nos. 3620 searchlight car, 6456-25 hopper and 6417-25 porthole caboose (with a coupler at each end). Returning to the line were the set’s nos. 3469 operating dump car and 6468 Baltimore & Ohio double-door automobile boxcar.