Con-Cor - 0001-003893 - Locomotive, Steam, 4-8-4 GS-4 - Northern Pacific - 2656

Model Information: Con-Cor introduced this model in 1985. The locomotives were originally made by Kato under contract with Con-Cor. In 2001, Con-Cor moved the tooling to China and made some modifications. The early versions of this engine were an S-2 configuration. In 2002, Con-Cor used the same platform to develop a GS-4. The chassis is made of either brass or a zinc alloy and the shell is plastic. They have a fair amount of detail and they run pretty well. They handle surprisingly well on tight curves.

DCC Information: The original mechanism is DCC-Friendly at best. The redesigned version (2001+) is fully DCC-Ready and supports a 8 Pin NMRA Socket PC Board decoder.

Prototype History: The GS-4 is a streamlined 4-8-4 "Northern" type steam locomotive used on the Southern Pacific Company from 1941 to 1958. They were built by the Lima Locomotive Works and were numbered 4430 through 4457. "GS" stands for "Golden State" or "General Service."

Road Name History: The Northern Pacific Railway (reporting mark NP) was a transcontinental railroad that operated across the northern tier of the western United States from Minnesota to the Pacific Coast. It was approved by Congress in 1864 and given nearly 40 million acres (160,000 km2) of land grants, which it used to raise money in Europe for construction. Construction began in 1870 and the main line opened all the way from the Great Lakes to the Pacific when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the final "golden spike" in western Montana on Sept. 8, 1883.

The railroad had about 6800 miles of track and served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. In addition the company had an international branch to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The main activities were shipping wheat and other farm products, cattle, timber and minerals; bringing in consumer goods, transporting passengers; and selling land.

The company was headquartered first in Brainerd, Minnesota, then in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It had a tumultuous financial history, and in 1970 it merged with other lines to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: Con-Cor has been in business since 1962. Many things have changed over time as originally they were a complete manufacturing operation in the USA and at one time had upwards of 45 employees. They not only designed the models,but they also built their own molds, did injection molding, painting, printing and packaging on their models.

Currently, most of their manufacturing has been moved overseas and now they import 90% of their products as totally finished goods, or in finished components. They only do some incidental manufacturing today within the USA.

Important Note: The Con-Cor product numbering can be very confusing. Please see here in the article how to properly enter Con-Cor stock numbers in the TroveStar database.