I see where 4-6-4 Hudsons were manufactured or rebuilt with different driver diameters. 79" (that I can fford) make one with the 74" (smaller ) drivers. I have no experience with nor can I afford brass.
I just recently became interested in this type of locomotive, and I noticed the difference in driver height if you put a BLI model beside a Rivarossi for example.
I am not a rivet counter so a small fudge won’t kill me but an obvious one like pilot height off the rails will.
Thanks
IIRC, Rivarossi reduced the driver diameter so that the original wheel spacing could be retained in spite of their humonguflanges.
OTOH, if the Rivarossi model is lettered for the Boston and Albany, the driver diameter SHOULD BE 75 inches. The B&A Hudsons were built with lower drivers to provide more power on the non-water-level grades east of Albany.
Chuck (Ex-NYC fan modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Hudsons were designed principally for high-speed passenger service. I bet it would be hard to find one with a driver diameter less than six feet.
Mark
Mark:
Just wondering–I heard an Urban Rumor that the Santa Fe occasionally used one of their big 80" drivered Hudsons in passenger service on the Valley Line between Bakersfield and Richmond during the 1940’s. If so, that seems to me that it would be the only 4-6-4’s ever to run in California.
Any information on that?
Tom [:)]
Tom, here is a quote from page 175 of Duke and Kistler’s Santa Fe … Steel Rails Through California, published 1963, under a photo of #3458:
“3450 class (No. 3450-3459). Five of these racy Hudsons were assigned to Valley passenger runs during the 1940’s, and occasionally wandered down to the Los Angeles division. They handled trains at better than 100 mph in the Valley, but it was not uncommon to see one climbing Tehachapi with a short train. Nos. 3450, 3458 and 3459 each obtained large tenders in 1951-52. All were scrapped by 1956 excepting 3450. It is preserved by the B&LHS at Pomona. The later 3460 class 4-6-4’s were not regularly used in California.”
Mark
Scanning through the book, it appears that Pacific types (4-6-2’s) were the most common locomotives used on Santa Fe’s Valley line during the latter steam-era decades, both for freight and passenger trains, and often double-headed. There is also a photo of Hudson #3454 “… Streaking through Stockton …” pulling the Grand Canyon Limited.
Mark
Since the SP, UP, WP and GN had no Hudsons, I’d say it was a safe bet that only the Santa Fe operated Hudsons in California.
Mark