I’m sure you would probably already know this but Reading 2101 which pulled the American Freedom Train and also yes is at the B&O Railroad Museum is now being restored not back to operating condition but is getting a cosmetic restoration. Just wanted to let you know just in case you weren’t aware of that.

They have had about 4 different, isolated time periods of marketing HO- The first time was during the latter days of the postwar era, from 1957-1966 (Mostly rebranded Rivarossi and Athearn until c. 1959-1960). They brought back HO during the MPC era, and revived a small portion of the old HO product line- most of it was never re-introduced. I think the MPC line lasted from 1974 to around 1977. Some time in the early 2000s Lionel offered a pair of fancy, high end HO locomotives, and then they abandoned HO again. More recently, HO has come back again. But contemporary Lionel HO seems to have absolutely nothing in common with the Lionel HO of the past.

Mhm 👍

There were two versions of the set- a "full" version, with the GS4, and a scaled back version with a couple less cars, and the ALCo instead. IIRC the prototype Freedom Train was pulled by a few different locomotives over the course of its journey, with the GS4 being probably the most iconic. There were two other steam engines that pulled it, but the GS4 is the most iconic. Why an ALCo diesel from Lionel, probably because they had the tooling. Perhaps they felt that it nicely tied into the 1940s Freedom Train, which was lead by an ALCo- albeit an Alco PA, not an FA.