Lima - 253 - Locomotive, Steam, 2-6-4T - Pennsylvania - 383

Model Information: This model was introduced in 1969. It uses a Lima pancake motor and does not run very well. The pilot truck and 3 drivers pick up one rail and the trailing truck picks up the other rail. No traction tires. The lighting is non-directional.
The model is referred to in catalogs as Q1B; it has a vague resemblance with Philadelphia & Reading Q1-b class. However it was not released with this road name, but instead with road names that never used such a wheel arrangement!

DCC Information: Pre-DCC era, not supported.

Prototype History: Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, a 2-6-4 locomotive has two leading wheels, six coupled driving wheels and four trailing wheels. This arrangement is commonly called Adriatic, from the Adriatic Sea, that was bordering, before 1918, the Austria-Hungary empire were this type was first introduced. The Adriatic wheel arrangement was usually used on tank locomotives, for which various suffixes to indicate the type of tank would be added to the wheel arrangement, for example 2-6-4T for an engine with side-tanks.
Tank engines with the 2-6-4T wheel arrangement were produced for many different railway systems worldwide and were mainly used for freight and suburban passenger working. They have been less successful on express passenger trains. The earliest known example also originated in South Africa, the Pretoria-Pietersburg Railway's 55 Tonner of 1898.
In North America, this wheel arrangement was used by a very limited number of companies, mostly for suburban services:
- Boston & Maine / Franklin & Tilton
- Chattanooga & Lookout Mountain
- Illinois Central
- Isthmian Canal Commission/Panama
- Philadelphia & Reading (class Q1-b/c/d)
More information on this site.

Road Name History: The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR) was an American Class I railroad, founded in 1846. Commonly referred to as the "Pennsy," the PRR was headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The PRR was the largest railroad by traffic and revenue in the U.S. for the first half of the twentieth century. Over the years, it acquired, merged with or owned part of at least 800 other rail lines and companies. At the end of 1925, it operated 10,515 miles of rail line; in the 1920s, it carried nearly three times the traffic as other railroads of comparable length, such as the Union Pacific or Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroads. Its only formidable rival was the New York Central (NYC), which carried around three-quarters of PRR's ton-miles.

At one time, the PRR was the largest publicly traded corporation in the world, with a budget larger than that of the U.S. government and a workforce of about 250,000 people. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 years in a row.

In 1968, PRR merged with rival NYC to form the Penn Central Transportation Company, which filed for bankruptcy within two years. The viable parts were transferred in 1976 to Conrail, which was itself broken up in 1999, with 58 percent of the system going to the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), including nearly all of the former PRR. Amtrak received the electrified segment east of Harrisburg.

Brand/Importer Information: Lima N scale European models were numbered with 3 digits until 1978. They were renumbered after 1978 by adding "320" before the previous number. e.g. "306" became "320306".

Manufacturer Information: Lima S.p.A (Lima Models) was a brand of railway models made in Vicenza, Italy, for almost 50 years, from the early 1950s until the company ceased trading in 2004. Lima was a popular, affordable brand of 00 gauge and N gauge model railway material in the UK, more detailed H0 and N gauge models in France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States as well as South Africa, Scandinavia and Australia. Lima also produced a small range of 0 gauge models. Lima partnered with various distributors and manufacturers, selling under brands such as A.H.M., Model Power, Minitrain and PMI (Precision Models of Italy). Market pressures from superior Far Eastern produce in the mid-1990s led to Lima merging with Rivarossi, Arnold, and Jouef. Ultimately, these consolidations failed and operations ceased in 2004.

Hornby Railways offered €8 million to acquire Lima's assets (including tooling, inventory, and the various brand names) in March of the same year, the Italian bankruptcy court of Brescia (town near Milan, last headquarters of Lima) approving the offer later that year. In December 2004, Hornby Railways formally announced the acquisition along with the Rivarossi (H0 North American and Italian prototypes), Arnold (N scale European prototypes), Jouef (H0 scale French prototypes), and Pocher (die-cast metal automobile kits) ranges. As of mid-2006, a range of these products has been made available under the Hornby International brand, refitted with NEM couplings and sprung buffers and sockets for DCC (Digital Command Control) decoders.

From Wikipedia