Hey didi, you make a good point. The 401A is a third way of doing this wiring. The foot pedal can unplug on the 401A and be stored separately, but has a different connector than most of the other machines for that foot pedal. Interestingly, some of the other 400 series machines I have here don't have that 2 cord setup, so I wonder why they did it with the 401.
I have the same problem for Singer original parts too. There's no one close to here (probably about 3 hours for the closest, and I'm not positive about that), so I've been known to have to find parts machines for them. Sometimes a quilt shop will take machines in too?