703 Hudson

If you picked up TM's You Can Do It 3 video, or perhaps follow one of the Lionel Trains groups on Facebook, you probably saw this project of mine there already. I had been wanting to build one for over 20 years and so I would research as best I could, finding hints of what might have been in somewhat surprising locations (like 773 instruction sheets). As you can imagine, the toughest part was working in the 1946 smoke unit. The housing fits on a 773 chassis, but I had to grind down the center section of the steam chest to accommodate it and allow room for the flapper. But I'm very happy with the results – it smokes and I love running it. The tender is a stand-in for now...2426RS body lettered by the late Mike Moore, with diecast trucks produced for Madison cars and copying the postwar 6-wheel truck design. Here is a list of the parts I cobbled together for the locomotive:

Nice job Joe.  I'm certainly no expert but your finished product looks pretty darn good to me.  I'd love to see it running and smoking on your layout.  I wish Lionel had produced this baby back in 1946 when it was cataloged.   I have the 1950 and 1966 versions of the 773 but a 1946 703 would have been great to add to my collection.

Very nice, Joe. What could have been!!!

I like the 703 tag on the ashpan!

Jim

I read the jacket and bought the video just so I could hear all the details.  I guess the brushplate is from a '46 Berk as well?  Did it just snap onto the field stack of the MPC motor?  I'm on Facebook but I don't personally think it's a good discussion forum. So, thank you for sharing the details of your project here on the OGR Forum!

Congrats on getting this custom project done, Joe. It for sure is a thing of beauty.

I was wondering when someone was going to do it ever since I saw that video TM made over 20 years ago covering all of Lionel's scale & semi-scale Hudsons. It's nice to see a fully realized version of what could have been.

P.S. Hope things are going over well at TM. I'm really enjoying the You Can Do It! series, and hope more videos are coming soon.

Nicely done, Joe!

I'll be curious to see how you handle the 2703W.

TRW

Thanks for the replies.

The tag is a laser-printed shiny silver decal...I made a hi-res scan of a 763E tag, cleaned it up, and changed numbers (and wording...keep reading below).

The brushplate is technically part number 2020M-30. It fits on the modern Hudson motor except the armature has a stem about 1/4" above the commutator. So I carefully drilled a hole between the brush receptacles and put in a short section of brass tubing to act as a bushing with a dab of lubricant.

Hey Todd! I had been planning on making this for probably over 20 years. In that time I had conversations with Dave Garrigues and John Palm about their thoughts. Dave insisted up and down that the 703 was going to be a full-scale Hudson model. One point he made was why would they intend to produce a 2703W if they already were going to also produce the 2426W? I believe the 2703W would have differed from the 2426W with the drawbar being similar to the 2226W tender (maybe/hopefully shorter) thereby making them different tenders and not interchangeable between the Hudson and Berkshire. But little hints of evidence here-and-there support Dave's theory...such as the ash pan tag with wording from the 700E tag and not the 763E tag (the only 703 "blueprint" I've ever seen).

Why I made certain choices: cosmetically, working in as many original 1946 parts was easy...especially for cosmetic "authenticity". I wanted the smoke bulb unit not just for accuracy, but it enabled me to use the one 703 part Lionel produced: the lamp. The prewar trailing truck assembly was needed to add the tag, but the ashpan doesn't sit on a postwar/modern hudson chassis – so I had to cut off the two posts off the chassis. Because the smoke unit is so big, the E-unit had to be moved back so I incorporated the 1946 horizontal version. It sits over the gearbox which means I can't use the ballast, which affects traction/pulling power. Also, the boiler doesn't fit over the smoke unit, so to make everything fit, I have to run the smoke unit through the boiler from the cab to the front, then fasten everything down. I used the 5340 scale Hudson because it doesn't have the cast-in details, instead using separately applied parts like the original 700E. I filled in some holes using JB Weld. That's the gist of it.

In addition to 1946 catalog images Lionel had a few line drawings of the 703 in operating manuals, especially for 1946 (although the smoke pellet diagram created for the 703 lived on in the 773 instruction sheets).

I'll also add that making this 703 this way made me appreciate the 773 more. The Lionel Corporation made quite a bit of modifications to make it run on O-31 and pair with a 2426W tender.

Nice job on the engine Joe!