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Originally posted by Bearlead:
The long-awaited day finally arrived earlier this week! I got a call from the guy that my bride refers to as my "drug dealer", Hank Argue of Hank's Model Trains in Louisville, Colorado. He said, your Brute is here. I jumped in the car and drove straight over to the store. Hank led me back to his overloaded stockroom. There in the middle of the floor was the largest box in the room by far. On the outside of the shipping container the UPS lading label said it weighed 54 pounds! I walked around the enormous box fully expecting to see a stenciled "Fragile" as in the Christmas Story when Ralphie's dad got his major award delivered to the house...."fra-jeee-lee, that must be Italian!"

Hank and I had some difficulty wrestling the huge package out of the stockroom and onto one of the counters in the front of the store. We grunted and groaned as we hefted it up, hoping the glass countertop would support the weight which it just barely did.

We opened the shipping box and with some struggling, and managed after several minutes of grunting and tugging to extract the beautiful Lionel Corporation Tinplate inner box from the brown cardboard one. The packaging is magnificent, both aesthetically and structurally. Inside the pretty pre-war styled box was the familiar styrofoam coccoon we have grown to expect from every manufacturer, but the surprise was that inside that snug encapsulation was a black steel "roll cage" that looked like you could drive a truck over it without damaging the engine inside. The guys at MTH put some real thought and effort into the Brute's shipping container and came up with a seemingly bulletproof solution to everything UPS could possibly throw at it!

Without removing the roll cage, which would have required the tedious removal of many screws that hold the thing together, we carefully wiggled and pulled the entire assembly of protective cage, grooved composite base, and sheet foam wrappings out of the confining styrofoam and set the whole thing carefully on the counter. In the process I got a few tantalizing glimpses of State Set green sheet metal and gleaming golden brass accents. A few other customers browsing in the store couldn't contain their curiosity and crowded around me as I carefully removed the sheet foam and clear plastic wrapping material from around my newest train acquisition. I felt like everyone was holding his breath. I know I was.

From the protective wrappings emerged the astonishing Brute. I had seen the chrome production prototype being tested at MTH on the OGR tour in April and the static display green painted version at the MTH booth in the Orange Hall at York and ordered one as soon as we got back to Colorado. Tom in the testing lab at MTH told me that he had suggested painting the State Set green engine with a contrasting stripe of apple green on the edges of the running boards and doing the cable bundles in front of the cab and the various grab irons in contrasting brass plating. He asked me what I thought of that. I agreed that both suggestions should definitely be incorporated in the production run units. I followed up with an endorsing comment to Mike Wolf in the same vein. I was happy to see that Tom's ideas were incorporated into my Brute....simply stunning, no other way to describe the finished product.

I haven't figured out how to clandestinely insinuate this huge box and its engine into the basement yet, so my gorgeous brute is back in its protective coccoon in Hank's stockroom until I can recruit a conspiratorial moving crew with a hand truck to help me. Therefore, I haven't had a chance to run the engine yet. I plan to lay an inside loop of dual gauge standard and O Gargraves track on my big 16X24 foot test layout so I can finally run the Brute and some of my other standard gauge and reproduction O gauge trains that are still languishing in their original boxes. The brute will give me that extra push to get this project underway and finished soon.

The biggest impression of my own Brute so far is its immense size and its incredible weight. Looking at it on Hank's store counter, even inside its roll cage shipping structure, it is easy to imagine a seven year old kid sitting on the cab (maybe with the pantographs removed) and foot powering it down a stretch of Buddy L track in a large backyard. I can now easily understand how the weight and size of the one and only original prototype Brute ultimately led to the decision by Lionel not to produce it. It's not only too heavy for a kid to lift and move, it's almost too heavy for a couple of grown men!

My hat's off to Mike Wolf and the entire crew at MTH that were involved in this project. The Brute represents a crowning achievement in the toy train world. It took Mike and Jerry Calabrese burying the hatchet and agreeing to license Lionel's pre-war tinplate reproduction rights to MTH. This Brute is an item that both CEOs can take immense pride in, the ultimate toy train reproduction. And considering that the original prototype that never made it into production in the '30s is reportedly on the market for 3/4 of a million dollars, MTH and Lionel have made an out of reach item available at an affordable cost to many who would otherwise never see let alone possess one. The Brute has fascinated collectors and toy train buffs for over 80 years. Now, hopefully with the additon of some appropriately scaled State Set passenger consists, the little boy or girl in so many of us can finally be expressed fully and joyfully after so many decades of impatient waiting!

VeryImpressedAndHappyBear

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I just have to ask...What is a Brute? And what exactly is standard gauge? Sorry if this seems stupid, but I really have no clue what a brute is.. Anyone have a picture or something on this?

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I am touched by your generous offer to keep my Brute safe until I get my new dual O/standard gauge loop laid and can finally spirit my Brute into the basement while Jophie is out shopping!

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Originally posted by scott.smith:
My wife knew about the Brute---and she wasn't happy....

For those who haven't seen my wife's story of me getting this engine see this link:
The Brute Chronicles with lots of pictures.

Scott Smith