MTH Premier O 20-3881-1 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine With Hi-Rail Wheels, Norfolk And Western #156

PROTO-SOUND 3.0 EQUIPPED

Like many innovations, the Shay locomotive was invented by an entrepreneur trying to get a jump on the competition. When Civil War veteran and ex-schoolteacher Ephraim Shay opened a sawmill in Michigan in the 1870s, logging was largely a winter operation. Roads made of ice and snow enabled lumberjacks to bring timber to mills with horse-drawn sleds.

Shay reasoned – correctly, as it turned out – that laying rails through the woods would allow him to supply his mill year-round and undercut his competitors’ lumber prices. Horses, Shay’s original motive power, proved problematic as they tended to get run over by log cars on downgrades. Shay experimented with a small steam engine but the pounding of the side rods was too much for his light temporary track. The lightbulb moment came when he noticed that his flatcars, however, were not tough on the track, and he decided to power a flatcar with a steam engine and a belt drive to one axle. It was several years later in 1880 that machinist John Carnes at the Lima Machine Works, while modifying a locomotive for Ephraim Shay, came up with the idea of powering all trucks with a drive shaft and beveled gears. Within a few decades, the re-named Lima Locomotive Works was one of America’s Big Three steam locomotive builders.

Features:
Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Boiler and Chassis
Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Tender Body
Authentic Paint Scheme
Real Tender Coal Load
Die-Cast Locomotive Trucks
Handpainted Engineer and Fireman Figures
Painted Cab Backhead Gauges
Legible Builders Plates
Metal Handrails, Whistle and Bell
Tender Truck Chains
Metal Wheels and Axles
(2) Remote-Controlled Proto-Couplers
Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting
Operating LED Firebox Glow
Operating Tender LED Back-up Light
Operating LED Marker Lights
Powerful 5-Pole Precision Flywheel-Equipped Motor
Synchronized Puffing ProtoSmoke System
Steaming Quillable Whistle
Locomotive Speed Control In Scale MPH Increments
1:48 Scale Dimensions
Onboard DCC/DCS Decoder
Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring Quillable Whistle With Freight Yard Proto-Effects
Operates On O-72 Curves

Steam DCC Features:
F0 Head/Tail light
F1 Bell
F2 Horn
F3 Start-up/Shut-down
F4 PFA
F5 Lights (except head/tail)
F6 Master Volume
F7 Steaming Whistle
F8 Rear Coupler
F9 Forward Signal
F10 Reverse Signal
F11 Grade Crossing
F12 Smoke On/Off
F13 Smoke Volume
F14 Idle Sequence 3
F15 Idle Sequence 2
F16 Idle Sequence 1
F17 Extended Start-up
F18 Extended Shut-down
F19 Labor Chuff
F20 Drift Chuff
F21 One Shot Doppler
F22 Coupler Slack
F23 Coupler Close
F24 Single Horn Blast
F25 Engine Sounds
F26 Brake Sounds
F27 Cab Chatter
F28 Feature Reset