4-6-4 Hudson

[NKP587]

What do you guys think of a 4-6-4 hudson? To be honest I haven't seen many of those out there. It would be nice to see an NYC, CBQ, CPR or any other type of hudson.

What are your thoughts?

[Dr EMD]

Broadway Limited has NYC Hudsons as well as a New Haven Hudson.

IHC has an ATSF Hudson and offers it in other road name (not correct, but acceptable depending on your modeling level).

What do you have in mind?

[Atlantic Central]

NKP587,

Well one main reason why there are not many models is there were not many prototypes. Only about 500 Hudsons in all of North America, NYC had most of them. As noted by Dr EMD, there is a model of those, and soon to be even more of the variations of that design.

The rest of the Hudsons where generally limited in number and unique in features making models other than brass unlikely. Many were experiments in "sooping up" Pacifics rather than being new locos from the ground up. While interesting in many ways, they are not a major player in the History of Steam.

Even on the NYC, famous for its Hudsons, there where way more of both Pacifics and Mohawks than Hudsons.

Specificly, the NYC had 195 Hudsons, 600 Mohawks, and staggering 1033 Pacifics. No other one road even had 100 Hudsons most had less than 20 with many being one of kind or groups of only 5 or 10 of a given design.

Sheldon

[Jake]

^Atlantic, if I'm not mistaken, isn't the 587 a mikado?

[SteamGene]

IIRC, NKP 587 is a USRA light Mikado.  Interestingly, on my VT&P, Hudsons are numbered in the 500 series, though the railroad only has four.  As Sheldon said, there weren't that many Hudsons. 
The IHC Hudson is a nice locomotive and relatively inexpensive. 
Gene

[RAM]

IHC does not have a ATSF hudson.  They just have a hudson with ATSF on it.

[Amtrak_Titan]

 The ATSF Blue Goose was a Hudson locomotive.

[SteamGene]

The IHC model is not of the Blue Goose, which had a streamlined fairing.
Gene

[japasha]

Outside of a few brass models, Rivarossi made a version of the Blue Goose back in the seventies It was not noted for having good running qualities as the mechanism waddled down the rails, unlike other Rivarossi offerings. I repowered with a Bowser drive and it runs well. The boiler is basically a NYC Hudson with the nose grafted on but the tender is close.

The normal Sata Fe Hudsons were big and brawny with large square tenders, unlike other Hudsons.

[SteamGene]

You mean rectangular tenders?   
The C&O Hudsons were rather big and brawny, too.  Of course the streamlined ones were one of the most awful looking examples of streamlining I've ever seen.  One did not receive that fairing and it is a most handsome Hudson.
Now why did C&O stick with Hudson and not call the 4-6-4 the Potomac, James, York, Shenandoah, or New River?  (No, I don't have the answer.)
Gene

[wjstix]

Rivarossi also made a streamlined Milwaukee 4-6-4 "Baltic" that looked good. With Walthers coming out with their Hiawatha passenger cars, would be nice to see a revamped model of that engine again.

CB&Q had some Hudsons too, included two that were streamlined with fluted stainless steel to match the Zephyr passenger cars.

BTW I rode behind a Hudson two days ago - CP 2816 (with Milwaukee 261 4-8-4). Would like to see models of both of those, since they could fit into a 1950's layout in regular service or a current one in fantrip service.

[ebtnut]

The C&O had two classes of Hudsons.  The first group were the heavist of the breed ever built.  Some had poppet valves installed.  The second group were rebuilt Pacifics, and intended for use with the stillborn Chessie train.  The "unique" streamlining was intended to mimic the appearance of coal turbine engines that were built for the same train.  The Chessie was an immense boondoggle on the part of the C&O--they acquired a whole fleet of new streamlined passenger cars, two new turbine engines (which were failures), and the rebuilt Pacifics.  The train never turned a wheel in revenue service.  Most of the rolling stock was sold off to other railroads, the turbines met a quick demise, and the 490 was left to go to the B&O Museum for display.

[SteamGene]

Actually, there were three turbines built, plus two coaling towers for their special coal.  The original Hudsons became L2s, all of which had poppet valves, and the rebuilt Pacifics became L1s.  All of them but one had the fairings, which were to mimic the turbines.   As EBTNut says, it was an enormous expense.  One of the dome observations was in Chattanooga on display about ten years ago.   

[Nigel]

What do you guys think of a 4-6-4 hudson? To be honest I haven't seen many of those out there. It would be nice to see an NYC, CBQ, CPR or any other type of hudson.

What are your thoughts?

How about NKP's ??



http://www.steamlocomotive.com/hudson/nycstl.shtml