New HO scale Product Announcement: De-skirted GS-4 and AT&SF 3460 Class Hudson

To wrap up the month of July, Broadway Limited Imports is proud to announce 2 brand new HO scale steam locomotives!

We at Broadway Limited Imports are excited to announce a new production run of the Southern Pacific GS-4 locomotive in HO scale, but with a twist — deskirted!

What does deskirted mean? Well for this version of the GS-4 locomotives, it means removing the side skirting on the side of the boiler. The Southern Pacific did this sometime before 1956, to make it easier for their crews to perform  maintenance on the locomotives. Around this time, many were reassigned to the to the San Jose-San Francisco Peninsula Commute service, freight service, and the occasional appearance on the San Joaquin Daylight. 

In this production run, we are offering new tooling with deskirted variations of the GS-4 locomotive. To go with these new tooling variations, we also are introducing new paint scheme variations. These variations include the aluminum painted trim on the pilot of the locomotive and two fantasy schemes. 

For many who model the Southern Pacific Railroad in during the transition from steam to diesel, these locomotives have a perfect place on their railroad. Plus we are bringing back a few popular versions of locomotive #4449, which still runs today thanks to the dedicated volunteers at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center and Friends of SP 4449. 

About the prototype: The Southern Pacific GS-4 locomotives were a class of 4-8-4 “Northern” type steam locomotives operated by the Southern Pacific from 1941 to 1958. The SP owned a total of 28 GS-4 engines, numbered 4430 through 4457. The GS-4’s were quite similar to the SP GS-3 Northerns, except with the GS-4, the SP introduced a dual-headlight casing, with the top light being a Mars light, and also the GS-4 had an all-weather cab.

The GS-4 locomotives were designed and primarily used for passenger service. They were capable of reaching high speeds, and wore the colorful Daylight paint scheme to match Southern Pacific Daylight passenger cars. Some of the engines were painted black during WWII, and most of them were eventually painted black later in life.

• The order deadline for these locomotives is October 30th, 2025.
• Expected delivery is May 2026

Our second announcement is a sister locomotive to a very popular model we’ve built in the past. We at BLI are proud to announce the Santa Fe 3460 Class “Super Hudsons” as the newest addition to our Brass-Hybrid line of highly detailed steam locomotives. 

The Santa Fe Railroad’s 3460 class comprised of six “Super Hudson” locomotives, all of which were built in 1937 by Baldwin Locomotive Works. The locomotives were put into service on the railroad’s transcontinental route between Chicago, Illinois and La Junta, Colorado. 

In December 1937, “Super Hudson” #3461 set a world record for the longest single run by a steam locomotive by completing the 2,227 miles from Los Angeles, California to Chicago without maintenance other than five refuelling stops en route. The train the locomotive pulled was the Fast Mail Express. 

By the end of 1956, all but one locomotive was scrapped. Locomotive #3463 was preserved and is on display in Topeka, Kansas. However there is effort taking place to restore the locomotive with the hopes to move it to a yet-to-be determined new site in Topeka, thanks to the help of volunteers from the nonprofit Kaw Valley Rail Heritage Conservancy. 

In our first production run of these locomotives, we are building 4 prototypical versions, along with 2 fantasy paint schemes, 1 painted but unlettered, and 1 painted brass. Models will come with a choice of Paragon4 Sound/DC/DCC and smoke or our Stealth DCC-Ready versions. 

• The order deadline for these locomotives is October 30th, 2025.
• Expected delivery is Spring 2026