I have been tinkering with my two BLI Hudsons. I am in the process of converting them from NYC to the Kiva Valley Railway. Since I am baseing my road in central Arizona, Oil was pretty commom for engines out here. Where there any Hudson’s that burned oil instead of coal? Either built, or converted?
Thanks…
Not any NYC ones that I know o, but other railroads had locomotives with the 4-6-4 wheel arrangment, including, I believe, Santa Fe. Those may have been oil burners. Since the magic words “Santa Fe” were mentioned, expect the correct answer to be forthcoming from Andy S [:D]
–Randy
The only oil buring on the NYC was the MIDNIGHT fixing them. If you search the wheels 4-6-4 you will get lots of information and pictures to look at. Randy is correct Andy S. will be here in a min.!!
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/hudson/
Found it!
Some of the later CPR H1 Royal Hudsons burned oil…and some of the ealier ones were converted in the later years of steam.
David
The NdeM had a few, built by Alco in 1938. I believe there were 10 of them, #2700-2709. Class NR-1. One survived and is on static display at Aguascalientes.
Here’s a photo from the www.steamlocomotive.com website, in their “Surviving Steam Locomotive Database”.
Regards
Ed
Hello “Big John,”
Seeing my name mentioned here I had to jump in. The only western U.S. railroads using the 4-6-4 type were the Santa Fe and the Milwaukee (you have to count the Milwaukee as western since it did go to Washington state).
The Santa Fe had 4-6-4s (the road didn’t use the name “Hudson”) in two groups. The 3450 class of 1927 (3450-3459) were built as coal burners with 73-inch drivers, but were later modernized with 80-inch wheels and converted to oil fuel. As rebuilt they were roughly equivalent to NYC Hudsons.
The 3460 class of 1938 (3460-3465) were very large engines with 84-inch (seven-foot!) drivers and 300psi boiler pressure, closer to the Milwaukee F7s and Chicago & North Western E-4s than to anything on the Central. The class engine of the 3460 group was streamlined for service on the lightweight “Chief,” although the Santa Fe soon found that it was more powerful than needed for that train and placed it in a pool with the 3461-3465 covering heavyweight trains, including the famous “Fast Mail Express,” east of La Junta, Colo.
The 3460s had large rectangular tenders carrying 20,000 gallons of water and 7,000 gallons of oil, and similar tenders were fitted to some of the rebuilt 3450s. The NYC tenders were designed for use with that road’s track pans, so they had a relatively small water capacity (12,500 gallons). A tender with greater water capacity would make a Hudson look more like a Western oil burner. (And don’t forget to remove the ash pans along the sides of the Hudsons’ fireboxes.)
So long,
Andy
Ah ha… well this is good news. I would like to thank everyone for chipping in and giveing me some hope. Andy, thanks for all the info, that was perfect. This gives me more than enough to “get away with it”.
My Kiva Valley is set in Central Arizona and connects to the north, Flagstaff, (via Williams Junction) and to the South, Phoenix. In '56 the only roads in Arizona were the Santa Fe’s and Southern Pacific. Both of which, were oil burners.
Well, a year ago I scored 2 of the TrainWorld.Com speacials, the BLI Hudson. Problem was, all they had left were NYC. But hey, price was right and the Kiva Valley scored a deal on cheap power. I am in the process of repainting the tenders to remove the NYC and had the wild idea of converting them to oil. I was going to try to cut out the coal section and make it appear it was plated in. Figured that would throw everyone for a loop. But, I wanted to make sure I wasnt totally off the wall in my idea…
Andy, you mentioned a good idea about the western style tenders… Might have to try and find a tender shell that I can get onto the BLI tender frame. Hmm…
Thanks again everyone.
The MILW had 2 4-6-4s converted to burn oil on the Idaho Division, Nos. 131 and 132. These were F6 class engines, with the “leap-frog” running boards, 80"drivers, Baker valve gear, 94’-3.5" long. Looked similar to the NYC engines, but better.[:D] Drawing of these and the NYC engines are in the “Cyclopedia Vol. 1 Steam engines” by Kalmbach. A full size photo of the front driver of one is in the entryway at the Kalmbach compound.
The running gear is similar, just some of the body detail could change.
The NYC converted some of it’s locomotives to oil burning that were assigned to some of it’s heavily forested divisions, specfically the Adirondak division, during the dry season. Mostly K-11 pacifics, E-1 moguls, F series ten wheelers, and H-5 mikados. No J-1 or 3 Hudsons that I know of. They were too slippery for such graded territory.
http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/NYC-ottawa-adirondack/message/31?threaded=1
If you’re freelancing just build a slip in tank that will fit the coal bunker.