GREAT FIND AT THE GREENBERG SHOW IN SOMERSET N.J.

Alex VERY NICE FIND.!!!!!!

Alex

Nice pick up  Enjoy

Steve

Alex,

We did have a great time!!

That is a really nice engine and you got a terrific buy on it. I wish I would've waited 17 years to get mine. Lol. I paid 3 times what you paid.

Break it in and keep it lubed up. It's a great runner once it's broken in. Enjoy.

Also I'd like to say thank you to the guys from the Independent Hirailers. It was real nice of them to let us try the engine out on their beautiful modular layout. We were to excited to take any pictures. Great bunch of guys too.

See you soon.

Mike R

That is a beautiful engine. I love the tender. Good luck.

You never know what you might find!! Nice addition Alex.

Beings the engine was built in 1997 the grease most likely hardened Up. But once it got moving it ran great. And knowing Alex the old grease has been removed and new grease added.

 

Mike R. 

 

It it was great meeting you yesterday, it was allot of fun and boy did we laugh.

 

Alex,

 

The engine looks great, enjoy that J

 

Dave Fortney

 

 

Can't go wrong with classic Lionel USA scale Hudsons. Awesome find Alex.I'm also looking out for one of those 18056's, too, despite criticism a lot of people give it. Still a handsome, unique engine.

 

I would've been at that show since it's only 45 minutes away from home, if I hadn't had work to worry about, and I do know Jim Wood very well from our Somerset County 4H train club. That's typical Jim, the very generous wise man. Glad you were able to give the old engine a good run with the help of some really nice people in the hobby.

Great find, Alex knew what he was getting. Talent, skills and knowledge.

 

Brent

That is a nice one and a great fine. Glad she started up with no problems.

Can't have too many scale Hudsons....

David 1,

 

It was great meeting you, Mike, and Jim as well. I think the best part of the whole day was in the parking lot at the end. LOL!!

 

anzani racer,

 

Some of the engines had a problem when new, meaning back in 1997. Some of the bearings were too tightly machined. Mine was tight when I purchased it new in '97. The one Alex bought yesterday was really tight. it wouldn't even move when we took it out of the box. But with a little coaxing and alot of oil it started to run. And I told him to keep it well lubed and run the wheels off it The more you run it the better it will run. Mine is now one of my best runners.

 

Mike R

Alex,

 

It was good to see you yesterday!! Had a ton of laughs!! Great find, as that is what shows are all about. One never knows what one may find. Was glad to see you run that engine on the Independent Hi-Railers modular layout. Great group of guys, if I may say so! Dave, Mike and I did not set-up our modules with them at this show, due to the snow. But, we made the trip up (2 hours), as you know, to pick-up some engines that you had upgraded for us. Best of luck with the new engine and I'm sure you will work your "magic" on the smoke unit and increasing the chuff rate to "4 per revolution".

 

Mikado 4501, the Jim Wood Alex is referring too, is not the Jim Wood you know. I had the opportunity to meet my namesake at the Edison Show last year. Great guy, as you allude too. I know in the future, when the Independent Hi-Railers set-up at a show where the Somerset 4-H group is set-up, I'll be sure to look Jim up and joke a little about our same names! What are the chances of two guys, with the same names, in the same hobby, running trains on modular layouts??!! Small world, indeed!

 

Alex.....hope to see you at Trainstock!

Mike R,

 

Just wanted to say, it was great meeting you yesterday with Alex. Your persistence on that engine, to keep working with it on the layout and to lube it heavily, telling Alex that it would eventually run as we all expected it too, made all the difference in Alex not returning it to the vendor he purchased it from. He was so close to returning it....

 

I'll second the great time in the parking lot.....we were exchanging train boxes from car to car, it looked like a "black-market deal" going down. Had lots a laughs!! After seeing Alex take the roll of bills out of your pocket, I've got a new found respect for Alex's "Brooklyn-born" abilities. What a laugh we had!

 

Take care and hope to see you again!!

Yep, had the same issue with mine. Get that 16 year old sludge out of the gearbox ASAP!

 

For anyone who doesn't like the Vandy tender, you can always do what I did and turn it into a fairly accurate late-life 5344. Purchase a 38097 separate sale PT tender and reprogram the locomotive to code 74 to accept it. Here is my model with numerous other cosmetic tweaks and a major internal overhaul:

 

 

Alex,

 

I was surprised to hear you did not have a 18056 Hudson. I picked mine up in 1997. This engine was my first 700E type Hudson, and my first scale engine. I like that Vandy tender also. I had the motor replaced on my 18056, and it runs even better now. After reading the post here on the OGR forum earlier this year about the "Hudson Project" I picked up one of those CCII PT tenders to run behind my 18056. The 18056 looks even better now. The Vanday Tender is parked in the Round house now. I am sure you know how to make the CCII PT tender work behind the 18056.

 

Take care and stay out of the cold. It is dropping to 8 degrees down here tonight, and I hear you folks up north will be much colder.

 

Richard

Nice find Alex,I always liked  the look of Vanderbilt tenders.

 

 

 

Ahhh, that makes sense now....

 

And yes it is a small world when you think about it.

 

I guess you'll get to do that this March when the club comes back to Edison for the Greenberg show again!

Thanks, Pops, Steve, Mike R, anzani racer, Don, Jeff T, Dave, Thomas, Brent, Renovo,

C. Sam, Jim, Nick, and Richard for the great info, input, and comments.

 

Anzani racer, just like they said the bearings were very tight, and the grease is 17 years

old. So it took a while to loosen up,I'm going to run it for a few hours tomorrow and see how much better it gets.

 

Thomas (Mikado 4501)  there's a few of these on the bay right now, I think I saw three of them.

 

Nick, what did you do internally to your engine.

 

Richard, I heard it's going to be around 3 degrees here tomorrow. I wish I lived in a warmer area.

 

Jim, after Mike R tried to steal my engine, the old Bensonhurst Brooklyn came out of me.

I had to take his money. LOL LOL !!!!!!!!

 

Thanks,

Alex

I've had this engine since it was first released and after some back and forth with Lionel and a rebuild by a local talented repair tech it is a great runner and smoker.

Interesting fact . this loco was in the very first "Heritage" catalog which was the top of the line at the time. Heritage products were supposed to have a lifetime warranty for the original owner but for some reason Lionel never honored it for this engine. Another famous"heritage" product was the

tinplate Backshop... also supposed to have a lifetime warranty.

I don't care if you dipped it in Texas

 

Great find Alex! It is a nice engine.

Nick, you should send Alex an email with the link to the thread with the trials and tribulations you went through on that project.

What is an ERR Puff and Chuff? 

The grease in the older Lionel engines (postwar/prewar) hardens up but I have never seen any grease in modern engines harden up.

 

Earl

I suppose I'll just post them here for anyone who wants to see:

 

Project Thread

 

Troubleshooting Thread

Very nice Alex. Best of luck with your new purchase.,

Beautiful engine Alex! The Vanderbilt tender looks great. Have fun with it!

Thanks Kevin B, RD, Ben, Nick, Moonman, Marty E, Earl, Spence, and Gerry for the GREAT

info, input, and nice comments. This is a very interesting thread.

 

Nick, thanks for the photos and video. I have a question, I noticed when the engine started off it jumped just a bit. How do you have this engine set up in the remote.

If you have a Legacy remote you should be able too run this engine in R100 mode, if the electronics are now ERR, instead of TMCC mode. This will give you a much more controlled start off. Especially if it's now a DC can motor. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

 

Also does this engine now have cruise control, which it should?.

 

Marty E, The chuff and puff board a is fairly new product from ERR, it's a great idea they came out with. They have also come out with some more new products, fellow forum member Box car Bill can let you know all the great products they have come out with.

 

 

Thanks to all,

 

Alex

 

Alex really like your new engine and the vanderbilt tender always like the looks of them. 

Yep, the Cruise Commander combined with Legacy makes for one very effective Cruise system. As for the start-off, I remember being a bit hot on the throttle in that video. I do have the locomotive programmed for TMCC control; I'm not sure what you mean by R100 although I vaguely recall seeing that somewhere in the settings. Looking through the manual online I can't seem to find it. Let me know more and I'll test it out when I get back from Australia on the 18th.

The Lionel 18056 was the first scale Hudson I ever owned.  I know the "Purists" denounced the Vanderbilt Tender as being not prototypical but I love it.  Whatever floats your boat.  Actually, this engine ran extremely well for me right out of the box.   I still have this engine and it still runs and sounds great.

Nick, 

 

R100 mode is a setting in your Legacy remote, which runs ERR products so much smoother than TMCC will. You will be amazed. I'm going to post a video here a bit later  of a very old Lionel engine that I installed ERR in and you will see how slow the engine will start off in this mode. It's very very easy to change it from TMCC too R100 . Please don't get me wrong, your engine and work that has been done to it is fabulous

 

Stay tuned,

Alex

 

Oh not at all Alex, I honestly had no idea what the R100 option was prior to this thread so am very happy to have learned about this now. Looking forward to testing the locomotive with the new setting when I get back, and will have to shoot a new video. This is why OGR is great 

 Pete

 

Here's a video of an older Lionel engine which I converted too full ERR with cruise,

and It's running in R100 mode. In the video I did a series of starts and stops so you can see how slow of a start off you will get in this mode. Much improved over the TMCC mode.

 

Thanks,

Alex

 

PC9850 - glad to see that somebody else has added the PT tender - and has removed

the classification lights from the smokebox front, as is proper for the 5344 late in life.

(Removing them is on my to-do list for next week.)

 

I've stuck with the Pullmor, as I find that it runs well for what it is - but I'm going

to have to tackle the "1-chuff" problem...

Very good upgrade work Alex!

 

That Southern Mikado is one of my favorite Lionel's from the Richard Kughn era, and the one you worked on operates gracefully. Maybe I should get mine upgraded to those features one day....maybe...

Thanks for the kind words, the engine was really just begging for that tender with the Scullin drivers and modern NYC "sans-serif" font of the cab number. Here's a list of other accurate mods you can make as they appear on my model:

 

-Drivers and pilot wheels painted black

-All plated accents bead blasted and painted black

-Steam chest bead blasted, casting lines ground smooth, and repainted

-Lubricator linkage corrected (reversed)

-Original whistle piece replaced with Vision Hudson whistle piece

 

There are two more mods I am currently looking into. The first is installing a Vision Hudson scale pilot truck. This is a really nice part with added brake shoe detail not found on the original scale truck for this model. The second is having a custom set of roller bearing rods developed for this model. I will be sending the original rods to a custom parts supplier which he will use as a guide for the roller bearing set. The existing set he had in stock was too short unfortunately, which highlights the fact that in actuality the Lionel Hudsons are a bit too long.