Duncan-
Are you/your dealer sure it's a Sunset? Don't think Sunset has come out
with theirs as yet, if they have I'll be going to my LHS to pick mine up
today! It's most likely the most recent run of Oriental's (2-3 years
ago), if it's factory painted; or the original run of Oriental's back
in the late 80's or early 90's. Paint on the original run has been
criticized as being so-so; the most recent run, paint was ok, but the
lettering looked to be pad printed, and didn't look good to me. My
advice, wait for the Sunsets - order one from your dealer, or you may be
able to order one directly from Sunset's website. Non-sound, non-DCC
lists for $650, sound & DCC, $700. It's my understanding that it has a
"smart" decoder, and will run on DC or DCC. I saw the Sunset SP&S #700
at my LHS, it's in the same affordable brass series that the O-5's will
be. It was simply beautiful! I was also told that they run and pull very
well. It was a consignment engine, somebody ordered the wrong version
(DC vs. DCC), I almost bought it! Check out the Sunset website, they
don't have photos of the HO models yet, but you can see what the NP and
SP&S ones look like to get an idea. Price-wise, you'd probably be
looking at paying between $500 - 800 for the either of the Oriental's.
You'd have to put an oil bunker in the tender, and take the ash pans off
the engine; plus if you're modeling post 1961, a train control/cab
signal box would have to be mounted on the engineer side of the
boiler, just ahead of the sandbox. Might be a few other things, but that
should take of most of the cosmetics. I'm sure others will chip in here,
too.
Good luck!
Jim
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