AWESOME NEW YORK CENTRAL HUDSON

 

I'm with you on the whistle, the only one in the same league would be the niagara whistle.....of course!

 

 

My favorite J3a - Lionel captures the feel of them best, I think. I have the 5433 and 5444; if Lionel offers the J3a in the later version (Worthington, relocated power reverse,

maybe a Selkirk smokebox front, shorter drawbar), I'm toast.

 

Oh - I use the air horn on my Lionel Niagara. Blaaaat. Different.

 

BTW - I shortened the drawbar(s) on mine by using the unit from a Lionel USRA 2-8-8-2;

still not as it should be, but better than the Olympic broad jump drawbar that came with it. 

That is very nice, one of the better Hudson's by Lionel . Awesome whistle also. Nice pick up Alex.

Very nice. Just curious Alex; what do you run on your layout? TMCC, DCS,etc.!!!

Very nice indeed. It sure is a shame that they they can't seem to get the tender closer to the engine.

Yes, this seems to be the nicer engine of the two Hudsons released in the same year. The 5444 looks great but the sound is not as nice. This was released in a 50th anniversary set 2001. The heavyweight cars even though they say Lionel Lines are stunning.

 

 

Alex,

 

Very, very impressive model!  Do you have any plans to do your usual upgrades to it. One thing that caught my attention was the chuff rate.  It appears to be 4.

 

Steve

Always nice to acquire an engine you have been looking for. Thanks for giving us a special look.

Hi Guys thanks for the nice comment's and interest, I appreciate it.

 

RickO, yes I agree, the Niagara whistle is awesome

 

D500, great idea shortening the drawbar

 

Dave, boy I love this engine

 

Spence, I run Legacy and DCS on my layout

 

Hot water, I agree the tender is far away from the engine

 

JDaddy,  the Lionel heavyweights are pretty nice looking, I wish I was able to get them

 

Steve, I did all the usual upgrades already, there's two fat boy speakers installed, 4 chuffs and I upgraded the smoke unit.

 

 

Thanks again,

Alex

It's a lovely loco, I just bought from Eliot, an MTH Dreyfus Hudson (Premier), also awesome with a great sounding whistle.

What a nice steamer Alex!

All that 'extra' smoke wafting down the locomotive really looks neat.

Alex nice looking engine.

Alex, That has been one of my favorites! I have that one which was out of the set, and the separate sale J3a with classification lights. I've been lobbying for an unstreamlined Vision Line or at least Legacy J3a for a couple of years now.

Another great conversion my Friend!!  You keep adding to that locomotive roster...pretty soon you will have to expand the layout!!

 

Alan

Whistle is impressive.  Great reverberation and decay.

Nice engine and great whistle and smoke Alex.

Alex;

Beauty engine for 2002. Great sounding whistle. RS4 I would guess.

Looks like it has a puffer style smoke unit, which I suppose was so they could get it sequenced with the chuffs. Works just great.

Really nice find.

 

Rod

Alex,

 

Another great upgrade and engine. I see your NYC collection keeps growing.

See you in Edison NJ this weekend. I will be there on Saturday.

 

JohnB

I've been looking for this engine as well. The nice thing about it is they've captured very nicely the look of a freshly delivered J3a with the Boxpok drivers and polished cylinder heads. It's a great sister engine to the separate sale J3a, which captures the look of one a little later on in life with plain cylinder heads and Scullin drivers. I've also been searching for a spare boiler front from 5433 to install on 5444, that way it will be relieved of the classification lights error.

 

I also did the 2-8-8-2 drawbar trick on my 5444. Was a bit of a PITA, but it's worth it as it brings the gap down to normal distance between Lionel engines and tenders.

Alex,

I notice that your layout has MTH Real Trax. Have experienced any problems with continuity of the center rail, and function of the switches?

Alex,

 

Sounds like you found a good one.  I purchased that set new and dumped the engine.  I was after the cars and the set was the only way to get them at the time.  I still have the cars with the extra car.  They are great.  I recently gave the box to Chris Lord.

Good morning everyone, I thank you for the nice comment's and interest

 

Brian, I've been looking for this engine for a while, and finally found it.It's a keeper for me.

 

Dave, great too hear from you, yes the MTH Dreyfus is a real beauty

 

C.sam,all that extra smoke comes from the minor upgrades I did. There's so much smoke it comes back out from the of the puffer piston.

 

Popsrr, thanks.

 

Skip, I had done an upgrade in the past for a fellow forum member on this engine,

once I worked on it. I was totally hooked.

 

Alan, I've been setting my sights mainly on the NYC roads, but I still like the UP, SP, N&W, which I will still collect.

 

Thanks, Patrick, and Jeff.

 

Rod, yes it's RS4 and it has the old puffer unit.

 

JohnB, I will see you at the Edison show on Saturday.

 

Nick, there's I'm pretty sure there's one on *bay right now, I like the idea of shorting the draw bar as was mentioned above. I think I will do this in the near future.

 

Bobby, I have a lot of trouble with my MTH Real Trax. The biggest problem is the switches and I also have trouble with the center rail. My future layout will be all Ross switches and Gargarves track.

 

Thanks again,

Alex

 

 

Looks and sounds GREAT!!!

Brent

Another awesome job Alex.

Very nice , great whistle .

Alex, my take on the engine was not as good as yours.  Being an MTH guy, I expected better operation and it did not measure up.  I dumped it ASAP.  It did have the looks.  That was one good looking engine.  The cars on the other hand are a work of art.  I would not take any price for them.  They look great with my Legacy Hudson.  That engine does measure up and stand above the rest.  I know any engine you get your hands on has to run good.  I might have received a bad one and I have heard other guys that were happy and stated they got good locomotives. 

Thanks Captain John, and nyclines !!!!!!

 

Chris where's the storage unit located, lol just kidding. Chris do you have the entire set

 

Marty I agree the cars are awesome, and what an awesome engine to team them up with.

 

Marty if you get a chance can you post one picture of one car, like a close up shot.

 

 

 

Thanks again,

Alex

Alex, I will do that tomorrow afternoon.  I was very busy tonight watching the Patriots beat the Broncos.  I have Barry stopping by in the morning for a visit.  Call me if you have time as I got the complete story on that subject we conversed about this week.  I will be sending your locomotive tomorrow and will put your parts inside the box.

Hey Alex,

I've been away from the forum for a while. Life you know. Just saw your videos.

That engine is really nice good luck with it.

Did you convert that to 4 chuffs? Also, what did you do to make it smoke like that? WOW!! Did you put a fan drive unit in it?

Awesome!

Mike R

 

You have to go to Lionel's parts page and order the Santa Fe 2-8-8-2 tender drawbar pictured below. Reason being it's identical to the Hudson tender drawbar, only shorter. To swap them out was a bit of a pain because of how the drawbar and wires are installed in the tender. Here's a photo of my 5444 after the new drawbar was installed. Note it still has the optional Boxpoks from the previous owner - I have since returned it to the original Scullins. I learned this trick from Pete (Norton).

 

Hey all, this set is on the bay right now, as of posting it is $600. The item number is 390715464278. Good hunting

Hi Tim,

I'm watching it now, it went from 199.00 too 600.00 in one day. I think this is going way higher then it is now. LOL

No pics, only the boxes. At least the last guy selling one of these took some detailed pics

 

 

 

I not real big hudson fan but this one i wouldn,t mind having.That whistle man sounds so cool.I think that got every body attendion.I bet it can pull a fairly long passenger train.

Another nice one Alex!

I noticed from the vedio that we both have the same taste in NYC cars. One of these days you need to post a diagram of your track plan. I love that trestle. I thought the NYC was a "water level route"

 

Richard