PRE-ORDER: Broadway Limited 9615 - Lima 2-8-4 A1a (DC Silent) Illinois Central (IC) 7050 - HO Scale

Pre-Order Due Date:  July 10, 2025

Most manufacturers give a Pre Order ETA which can be seen near the 'add to cart' button. They also give a due date which is indicative of when the product is expected to go into production.

There is a 5% NON-refundable deposit for preorders, this amount will be deducted from the price of the product when it arrives.  You will see how much downpayment is required after adding the item to your cart.

For any pre-order submitted after the due date, we will try our best to fulfill your order, but are at the mercy of the manufacturer and if they produce more than were preordered by their dealers.

Pre-Orders will show a 0 shipping cost now, and shipping will be included on your invoice at time of product arrival.

When the product(s) are available to ship, you will receive an invoice via email and text through Intuit QuickBooks for the remaining 95%. Message and data rates may apply.

Please note that Estimated Arrival Dates can change at any point. Midwest Model Railroad is not responsible for manufacturers delaying production.

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Following World War I, the Boston and Albany railroad was looking for more sustainable freight power to handle the railroad’s grades at Charlton Summit and the Berkshire Hills at Washington. Back then it was not unusual for freight trains to use their 16 hour crew rules for traversing the 200 miles of main line. 

The railroad's answer was Lima Locomotive Works.  With increases in train length and faster speeds needed to meet demands, the Ohio based locomotive builder  took one of their "super 2-8-2" designs for New York Central and added an additional axle to it to create the first 2-8-4 in the United States. All in all, Lima built 25 A-1a's and 20 A-1b's for the railroad in 1926 and all were scrapped between 1949 and 1957. 

The A-1 featured 63-inch driving wheels, a working boiler pressure of 240 psi, and produced over 76,000 lbf of tractive effort from 28-by-30-inch cylinders. They ultimately were not suited for fast freight, but the A-1's proved to US railroads that they had a dramatic performance improvement over other steam locomotives on the line. They hauled heavier trains over the B&M's line more than an hour faster than their 2-8-2 mikados. 

In our first production run of A-1a's and A-1b's, we are building the locomotives in several different prototypical appearances. This includes the Lima Locomotive Works #1 and the Illinois Central 7050.  We are offering these models in both Paragon4 Sound/DC/DCC with smoke, and our Stealth Series.  Our Stealth series models are no-sound and DCC-ready.   They come with a 21-pin decoder socket for easy decoder installation, and they come factory-equipped with an 8-ohm speaker.   

All models have hand-crafted brass boilers, cabs, and tender bodies, and die-cast locomotives and tender chassis.