I picked this Lionel 258 up off eBay this week. From 1939-1941, it was an uncatalogued item for Lionel during those last few years running up to the war. I'll be honest, it's something I've looked down my nose at for as long as I've been messing with this stuff. I'm a fan of the 259/259E series, and this final variation just sticks in the craw. It reminds me of the stuff Madison Hardware offered during the war, cobbled together out of bits from the parts bins, painted in flat dark colors without any of the lithography or nickel/copper/brass trim of their predecessors:
To keep the cost down, they fitted the last prewar O-27 motor inside and mated it with the 1689T coffin-style tender (no whistle) that came with most of the low-end O-gauge and O-27 steamers. Most of the sets I've seen feature the 1680 tank car, the 1679 box car, and the 1682 caboose, all carryovers from the Ives line that became Lionel's O-27 freight roster. In 1941, however, there was an uncatalogued set, #8042, that featured a consist that included an O-gauge 655 boxcar (cream/tuscan), 654 tank car (light gray), and 657 caboose (light red/tuscan). I have all of those, so I can make that up for fun. Given the O-gauge gear, I imagine they charged a bit more for this one. Supposedly there was an uncatalogued #8062 set that had the same consist but included a 2689TX tender (with whistle).
Anyway, I've come around to thinking there's something neat about the 258 and the #8042 set, an offering from Lionel likely for that 1941 Christmas, one that fell just a couple weeks after Pearl Harbor. Life in America changed quite a bit after that.
