SeeYou190
As for your other three... are they just locomotives that appeal to you, or are there other considerations.
I model the B&O during the transition period, but I honestly don't care about prototypical trains running on it. I'd much rather have amazing engines/trains like Big boy, Em-1, Big Blow, and GS-4 Daylight running on my layout than be restricted to what's period-accurate. That's just my personal preference, I figure that I can always store away my non-proto locos if I want to do an accurate operation for a day.
For the most part, The 3 I picked are just the most appealing to me in the price range I'm looking at. Since I model B&O, the EM-1 is a no brainer (plus I don't have any articulated loco's yet so I kinda want one). The T-1 just looks absolutely amazing, has lots of pulling power, and can do both freight and passenger service. And all the stuff out of scale trains is so highly detailed and powerful that I rather want one. The Kato stuff that might come to mind in this price range is the GS-4 or a DCC GG1 (the rest of the Kato stuff doesn't much interest me, though I don't really know why). However, I already both the daylight and a GG1 so they're not on the list.
The only real "special" considerations are DCC (sound is nice but not necessary), and pulling power. I like to run longer trains but have 2% grades all throughout my layout so it's a bit tough on the locos, so pulling power is a must-have.
I prefer east coast trains since I was born there, and have family that worked in the port authority, often on train-related stuff (thank my G-Pa for the original Penn Station number boards). But, as I'm sure you can tell by the mix of the Em-1, the GTEL turbine, and the Daylight, I'm not very picky.
