First, Yes I know there weren’t any in the US. Now that we have THAT out of the way… Another thread mentioned Little River #126, aka ‘Skookum’, and her little sister #148. Those, and the Alco in New Zealand are the inspiration for the build
I decided fairly early on that this wasn’t going to be a scale model, rather a freelanced ‘might have been’. It also had to operate on R-2 curves without any fuss. (It will actually go around R-1, but doesn’t like it) My choices for power bricks were between LGB, Aristo, and HLW. I finally went with LGB for a few reasons; they disassemble easily, are fairly inexpensive used, and they run practically forever. I chose to use NOS Delton c-16 parts in the build to save time, plus they’re inexpensive. Bruce Chandler was nice enough to sell me a 2020 to get started. As soon as the box arrived I started cutting it apart… original post from something like April was here http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=11357 Then I got busy with other projects, and it collected dust (and spiderwebs) all summer. A few weeks ago a LGB tender showed up courtesy of Jerry McColgan, and a trailing truck came from England within days. Sounded kinda like a hint to me… First test fit shows that the Tender from a 2-4-0 is actually too large for a 2-4-4-2, strange…
Out came the saw and the tank got shortened (lowered) by 3/8". It probably needs narrowed by 1/4", too… but that sounds too much like work.
Truck sides got changed, and the bolster stabilizers and kingpins were cut down to get the body another 1/8" or so lower. Then I added some Ozark jewelry
Looks a bit more balanced now, I think.
Next I get to dis-assemble the engine to wire the lights and smoke, and fit the trailing truck and drawbar, before starting final assembly and paint. I think it looks better than the Botchmann mallet, but then I would. I’m betting it runs better, too. 
