Product Description
Announced Date:
May 2023
Released Date:
Feb 2024
Individually Boxed:
No - 2 to a case
Road Name: Union Pacific (Two-Tone Gray w/Yellow Stripes - Coal Tender)
Road Number: 3989
Product Line: Premier
Scale: O Scale
Features:
Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Boiler and Chassis
Intricately Detailed, Die-Cast Tender Body
User Installed Smoke Deflectors
Authentic Paint Scheme
Die-Cast Locomotive Trucks
Handpainted Engineer and Fireman Figures
Metal Handrails, Whistle and Bell
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 7-Pole Precision Flywheel-Equipped Motor
Synchronized Puffing ProtoSmoke System
Steaming Quillable Whistle
Locomotive Speed Control In Scale MPH Increments
Wireless Drawbar
1:48 Scale Dimensions
Onboard DCC/DCS Decoder
Proto-Scale 3-2 3-Rail/2-Rail Conversion Capable
Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring Quillable Whistle With Freight Yard Proto-Effects
Unit Measures: 32 x 3 1/8 x 4 1/8
Operates On O-72 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:
The first Challengers were conceived in 1936 as fast freight engines to replace the Union Pacific's fleet of three-cylinder 4-12-2 locomotives. With an extra center cylinder for added power and a top speed of 45 mph, the 4-12-2s had been successful freight engines when built in 1926. But a decade later they were considered slow and difficult to maintain. So American Locomotive Works (Alco) was commissioned to build what became one of the most successful fleets of articulated engines on any railroad. Forty Challengers were built in the 1930s. The pressure of wartime traffic brought an order for 65 more with bigger tenders and many minor improvements.
The Challengers were steam power at its zenith. They incorporated all the technology that represented super-power steam, including roller bearings on all axles and drive rods - but none of the foolishness that characterized some of the desperate efforts to save steam in the post-war years. Most Challengers were assigned to freight duty, but a number were designated for passenger service, hustling 20-car trains across mountains and deserts to California and Oregon at speeds up to 70mph.
It was in a roundabout way that six Challengers ordered by the UP ended up hauling coal through the Appalachians for the Clinchfield Railroad. In the midst of World War II, the War Production Board refused the Rio Grande's request to order new articulateds of its own design from Baldwin Locomotive Works. Instead, the Board diverted the last six Challengers in UP's order to the Rio Grande - which turned up its nose at the locos and decided to lease them for the duration rather than buying them. After war's end, the Rio Grande returned the unwanted engines to the government. In 1947, the War Assets Administration sold the orphan locos to the Atlantic Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville Railroads, which put the Challengers to work on their jointly-owned subsidiary, the Clinchfield, Carolina & Ohio. Thus a group of engines intended to speed over western deserts and mountains ended up thundering through Appalachia.
Did You Know?
The UP apparently expected to get the remaining six Challengers they had ordered after the war - but the U.S. government, who owned them, stored them in Salt Lake City until striking the deal that sent them to the Clinchfield.
Usually ships within 2 days. 
