Available Items

20-3876-1

O Scale Premier 3-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Cass Scenic Railroad

20-3882-1

O Scale Premier 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Chesapeake & Ohio

20-92333

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Chesapeake & Ohio

20-92334

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Chesapeake & Ohio

20-3881-1

O Scale Premier 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Norfolk & Western

20-92331

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Norfolk & Western

20-92332

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Norfolk & Western

20-3884-1

O Scale Premier 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Red River Logging Co.

20-92337

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Red River Logging Co.

20-92338

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Red River Logging Co.

20-3880-1

O Scale Premier 3-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Unlettered

20-3877-1

O Scale Premier 3-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • West Side

20-92329

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • West Side

20-92330

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • West Side

20-3883-1

O Scale Premier 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • West Virginia Pulp & Paper

20-92335

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • West Virginia Pulp & Paper

20-92336

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • West Virginia Pulp & Paper

20-3878-1

O Scale Premier 3-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Western Maryland

20-92325

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Western Maryland

20-92326

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Western Maryland

20-3879-1

O Scale Premier 3-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Weyerhaeuser

20-92327

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Weyerhaeuser

20-92328

O Scale Premier 6-Car Skeleton Flat Car Set w/Log Load
  • Weyerhaeuser

20-3885-1

O Scale Premier 4-Truck Shay Steam Engine w/Proto-Sound 3.0 (Hi-Rail Wheels)
  • Unlettered

2023 Premier O Scale 3 and 4-Truck Shay Locomotives Announced

March 14, 2023 - M.T.H. Electric Trains will be releasing Premier O Scale 3-Truck and 4-Truck Shay steam locomotives in 14 different livery configurations this Fall. Many of the liveries will be complemented with separately sold 6-car Skeleton Log Car sets. Each of these offerings is expected to begin shipping to M.T.H. Authorized Retailers in November 2023. This new production of the Shay will include the steaming quillable whistle feature for the first time.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

PROTOTYPE HISTORY

Like many innovations, the Shay locomotive was invented by an entrepreneur trying to get a jump on the competition. When Civil War veteran and ex-schoolteacher Ephraim Shay opened a sawmill in Michigan in the 1870's, logging was largely a winter operation. Roads made of ice and snow enabled lumberjacks to bring timber to mills with horse-drawn sleds.

Shay reasoned - correctly, as it turned out - that laying rails through the woods would allow him to supply his mill year-round and undercut his competitors' lumber prices. Horses, Shay's original motive power, proved problematic as they tended to get run over by log cars on downgrades. Shay experimented with a small steam engine but the pounding of the side rods was too much for his light temporary track. The lightbulb moment came when he noticed that his flatcars, however, were not tough on the track, and he decided to power a flatcar with a steam engine and a belt drive to one axle. It was several years later in 1880 that machinist John Carnes at the Lima Machine Works, while modifying a locomotive for Ephraim Shay, came up with the idea of powering all trucks with a drive shaft and beveled gears. Within a few decades, the re-named Lima Locomotive Works was one of America's Big Three steam locomotive builders.

Check out each of the offerings in the list on the left.

Product 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, Whistle and Bell
  • Tender Truck Chains
  • Metal Wheels and Axles
  • (2) Remote-Controlled Proto-Couplers
  • Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting
  • Operating LED Firebox Glow
  • Operating Tender LED Back-up Light
  • Powerful 5-Pole Precision Flywheel-Equipped Motor
  • Synchronized Puffing ProtoSmoke System
  • Steaming Quillable Whistle
  • Locomotive Speed Control In Scale MPH Increments
  • 1:48 Scale Dimensions
  • Onboard DCC/DCS Decoder
  • Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring Quillable Whistle With Freight Yard Proto-Effects
  • Unit Measures: 20 1/2 x 2 7/16 x 4 1/16
  • Operates On O-72 Curves