The NYC Hudson that were talked about recently are pictured with the large PY-4 tender, prototype of course, but the big news is the " Steamlined 20th Century Limited Passenger Train is coming soon.
BLI is going to do the 20th Century Limited passenger train also!
It just keeps on getting better.
Anyone out there that needs the 20th Century Limited train??? The Dreyfuss designed Hudson and the complete train should be a hot item.
This is great, now all BLI has to do is also build and sell the Pennsylvania Broadway Limited passenger train so I can run them side by side on my future layout.
See my AVATAR for what this looks like.
I have a lithograph of the painting known as “Steel, Steam, and Thunder” of both trains running side by side at Elgin Illinois in the late 1940’s.
The New York Century Limited is on the left, the PRR Broadway Limited on the right.
My Dad worked as brakeman and my Uncle was an engineer on the PRR and they would ride the PRR BLI home( Fort Wayne Indiana) from Chicago, and had pictures of both trains running side by side coming out of Elgin and into northwest Indiana.
They both told me that on occasion if there were only a few passengers on either train, the engineers were known to take the trains up to speeds of 140 mph side by side, but speeds of 70 to 80 mph were more common.
Still that was fast!
My Dad and Uncle both told me that sometimes the engineers would slow down and wait on each other if their departure times out of the Chicago area were very close to the same time, then race each other.
I later read in a book about these two trains where this was a somewhat a common practice.
Must have been something to see!
The T1’s were reported to hit over 120 MPH with a train unofficially, but the K4’s and Hudson’s never saw much over 100 MPH on any train. 100 MPH was fast in the forties and considered about the limit to any track conditions on the PRR or NYC.
I watched the T1’s near one hundred miles per hour many times on the Spirit of St. Louis in Illinois and they were absolutely marvelous to see at speed. They tended to glide along at high speed with the roller bearing rods just a blur and the smoke laying right back down to the tracks.
I have several books showing pictures of the departures out of Chicago.&nbs
It would also make sense to do the Broadway Limited as the cars are largely similar to the 20th Century Limited. There were variations in window layout, and obviously the head end cars and diners are different, but it would seem to make sense to do both.
I suppose it would be a great fit for a company by the name of Broadway Limited Imports to produce the Broadway Limited. Go figure.
The K-4’s were good but couldn’t match the Hudson.Anyone know of the results of races of other combinations of locomotives between the Pennsy and NYC. H ave always been curious between in particular the T-1 and Niagara.I would think the Niagara better to 80 but the T1 better 80 on up with definitely a higher top speed.
Terry