Announced Date: |
Jan 2024 |
Released Date: |
Est. Sept. 2024 |
Individually Boxed: |
N/A |
- Road Name: Jersey Central (Blue Comet)
- Road Number: 832
- Product Line: Premier
- Scale: O Scale
Features:
- Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Boiler and Chassis
- Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Tender Body
- Authentic Paint Scheme
- Real Tender Coal Load
- Die-Cast Locomotive Trucks
- Handpainted Engineer and Fireman Figures
- Painted Cab Backhead Gauges
- Legible Builders Plates
- Metal Handrails, Whiste and Bell
- Tender Truck Chains
- Metal Wheels and Axles
- Remote-Controlled Proto-Coupler
- O Scale Kadee-Compatible Coupler Mounting Pads
- Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting
- Constant Voltage LED Headlight
- Operating LED Firebox Glow
- Operating LED Marker Lights
- Operating LED Numberboard Lights
- Lighted LED Cab Interior
- Operating Tender LED Back-up Light
- Powerful 5-Pole Precision Flywheel-Equipped Skew-Wound Motor
- Operating ProtoSmoke System
- Steaming Quillable Whistle
- Locomotive Speed Control In Scale MPH Increments
- Wireless Drawbar
- 1:48 Scale Dimensions
- Onboard DCC/DCS Decoder
- Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring Quillable Whistle With Passenger Station Proto-Effects
- Unit Measures: 23” x 2 5/8” x 3 11/16”
- Operates On O-36 Curves
Steam DCC Features
- F0 Head/Tail light
- F1 Bell
- F2 Horn
- F3 Start-up/Shut-down
- F4 PFA
- F5 Lights (except head/tail)
- F6 Master Volume
- F7 Steaming Whistle
- F8 Rear Coupler
- F9 Forward Signal
- F10 Reverse Signal
- F11 Grade Crossing
- F12 Smoke On/Off
- F13 Smoke Volume
- F14 Idle Sequence 3
- F15 Idle Sequence 2
- F16 Idle Sequence 1
- F17 Extended Start-up
- F18 Extended Shut-down
- F19 Labor Chuff
- F20 Drift Chuff
- F21 One Shot Doppler
- F22 Coupler Slack
- F23 Coupler Close
- F24 Single Horn Blast
- F25 Engine Sounds
- F26 Brake Sounds
- F27 Cab Chatter
- F28 Feature Reset
Overview:
At the very apex of the Roaring Twenties, just months before 1929 stock market crash, the Central Railroad of New Jersey inaugurated its twice-daily Blue Comet service between Jersey City and Atlantic City. Heading the fast, luxurious trains were the CNJ’s nearly-new Baldwin-built P47 Heavy Pacifics. Three locomotives — painted in a beautiful blue livery with nickel trim, carrying the train’s name on a bronze plate under the feed water heater, and numbered 831, 832 and 833 — covered The Blue Comet’s fast schedule along the Jersey shoreline. Two sister engines were assigned to lesser CNJ name trains: No. 834 in green pulled The Bullet while No. 835 in black livery hauled The Queen of the Valley.
The Blue Comet consist was painted in blue to symbolize the sea and sky of the Jersey shore, with a cream window band to represent both the shoreline’s pristine sand and a comet streaking through the heavens. In a departure from normal railroad practice, the cars carried the train name rather than the railroad name on their letterboards. The rolling stock consisted of rebuilt coaches and diners trailed by an open-platform brass-railed observation, with each car named for a different comet. The Blue Comet was also the first train east of the Mississippi to be equipped with roller bearing trucks.
Joshua Lionel Cowen is said to have been a frequent customer on The Blue Comet, and he certainly memorialized the train far beyond its native Jersey shores. His Standard Gauge Blue Comet is perhaps the most well-known and desired Standard Gauge toy train ever built, and its popularity continues today, long after the prototype succumbed to competition from the automobile in 1941.