Today, my son got his first clue that we are Santa Claus...he got off the bus and saw a Trainworld package on the porch. He recognized the word train. My wife succeeded in lying to him...it's for his cousin or grandpa.

Trainworld has the Mehano/IHC/Pemco 2-6-0s for $30! I ordered him one, as that's quite the price for such an engine. To be prototypically accurate, I ordered him a Southern Pacific one. It came in a tray but without the box, and equipped with NEM couplers. Still, the coupler swap is easy. They also had a pacific for $50 and the mountains for $60. Not bad in my opinion. No sweet deals on their 2-8-2s or 2-10-2s. I'm not a fan of their locomotives other than the mogul and OO scale 4-4-0s, but the price was definitely right. I would have also liked to get him one of their 2-8-0s, but they didn't have those either. My son is 6, so getting a BLI 2-8-2 or Spectrum 2-8-0 wouldn't have gone over well. After a year, he's yet to damage his Bachman 0-6-0...but killed an Athearn PA-1, Mantua F-unit, and a Life Like dockside.

Regardless, I thought I should pass on the 2-6-0 find.

are they being produced again, or is this some kind of old stock? I wanted one of the 2-6-0s for a long time, and one Christmas I found a good deal on one of the 4-4-0s with the same 2-6-0 boiler. Not exactly what I wanted, but it ran great. My only issue was the oversize flanges, and when I finally built a layout with code 70, it wouldn't run. I decided to kitbash the boiler onto a MDC 2-6-0 chassis, and still have the old Mehano 4-4-0 mechanism that I may save for another project.

I'd guessed it to be old-stock, stripped out of IHC boxes...but they have NEM couplers installed. So, I'd guess that Trainworld acquired the old IHC stock, but it is a touch odd. Either way, next year's Christmas gift will need to be a set of Harriman passenger cars!

That is a good deal on steamers. Repurpose the Trainworld box for another present from you so Santa stays in the clear.

That's interesting about the couplers. I wonder if IHC simply imported the locos, swapped the couplers, and put them in their own box for the USA market. Do they still have the large flanges?