My original engine didn’t come with cruise when it was purchased new, so a few years ago I upgraded it to cruise using Kline’s after market kit and lasted only a few months before it went up in smoke.
I really wanted a scale Hudson and for the ones available, I thought the Kline looked the best, especially with the lit class lights on the same plane as boiler front so it looks the part of the pre war Lionel Hudson’s you wanted growing up. I felt I was in quandary debating if it made sense to put more money in the engine or bite the bullet and just get a used ps1 Mth Hudson and upgrade it to ps2 (or look for a deal on ps2 one). The smaller motor in the Hudson seemed like not the right solution as it did struggle at times when into my curve entries.
I talked to Pat (harmonyards) about options on replacing the motor with a small pitman motor as he had a thread going on this approach for a while. He discussed how that hadn’t really worked out as the small Pittmans had become very costly. He also talked about other options,
option #1 was using the same approach staying with the Kline chassis and instead replace with a better quality motor than the Kline but I would have to loose the fly wheel.
option #2 was replacing the entire Kline chassis with a Mth chassis and move forward with a huge pitman motor. I wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on the chassis replacement as there was more cost involved and the trains I pull are not on grades and not huge.
In the end I had Pat swap the Kline motor for the more robust motor pictured below. The only draw back was no option for a flywheel. He also replaced the chuff cam to allow 4 actuations instead of 2. I sent him just the engine chassis with the original motor and he sent it back with the new motor installed and the new cam. I purchased and installed a ERR cruise commander and also did some work on the coal pile to make it look more realistic. I kept the original puffer smoke unit as well which now gets actuated 4 times a revolution, which has its own kind of charm to it (just enough smoke to enjoy it).
I consider most of my running light duty with level tracks and not huge passenger trains. I am very happy with how this turned out. I thought others might be trying to go through a similar decision process.
original Kline
new motor from Pat
improved coal pile
