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.

Industry-leading Model Features:
•    ALL-NEW Paragon4 Sound & Control System
•    Synchronized Puffing Smoke with Chuff Sound
•    Variable Puffing Smoke Intensity and timing
•    Integral DCC Decoder with Back EMF for Industry Best Slow Speed Operation in DC and DCC
•    Precision Drive Mechanism engineered for continuous heavy load towing and smooth slow speed operation
•    5-Pole Can Motor with Skew Wound Armature
•    Handcrafted Brass Boiler, Cab, and Tender Body, and Heavy Die Cast Chassis for Increased Tractive Effort
•    Premium Caliber Painting with Authentic Paint Schemes
•    Prototypical Light Operation with Separately Controllable Headlight, Numberboard Lights, and cab light
•    Factory-installed Engineer and Fireman Figures
•    Prototypically Accurate Models for 1930's, early 1940's, and post 1946 appearances
•    Many Separately Applied Details such as Handrails, Grab Irons, Ladders, Piping, Cab Glass, Whistle, Brass Bell, Markers, Numberboards, Air Tanks, and Many Others
•    Equipped with Rubber Traction Tires for Increased Pulling Power
•    Recommended Minimum Radius: 18 inches
•    Accurate Prototypical Sounds for the Boston and Albany A-1a and A-1b locomotives

Broadway Limited Imports is proud to introduce Paragon4: The new benchmark for premium HO sound-equipped locomotives. These DC and DCC-Sound equipped locomotives feature the ALL-NEW Paragon4 sound and control system. Each Paragon4 locomotive comes with BLI's own integral DCC Decoder factory-installed. Paragon4 locomotives offer Dual Mode DC and DCC operation with superb back EMF motor control, improved DC motor control, built-in capacitor pack for more reliable electrical pick-up, industry best on-board sound with Rolling Thunder functionality, Pro Lighting Mode for prototypical light control, Switcher model for precise low speed control, recordable DCC operation for automated playback, and the same excellent level of detail that you’ve come to expect from Broadway Limited Imports.