The Hidden Hudson

One thing retired guys do is work on their model railroad.  I'm doing that.  Right now, I'm trying to extend the scenic portions.

I model Conrail circa 1990 in South Jersey, using an "alternate history" approach that allows a different set of routes to have been selected during the PRSL consolidation and later Conrail rationalization.  Here are some pictures:

Farms and peach orchards are a common sight is South Jersey.  WPMI51 heads back to Pavonia.

Gloucester (modeled after Pitman)

Atlantic City terminal

WPCA31 working Gloucester

But, that's not the point of this blog.  I happen to have an old, non-powered kit of a NYC J3 Hudson that I assembled a few decades ago.  It's a decent looking model, but I've always wondered what to do with it.



Then it hit me and I'm working on the scene....

Here's the back story (Full disclosure - I have no idea how the PRSL deal between the Reading and Pennsylvania actually worked.  Nor am I any kind of expert on steam locomotive operation or maintenance.  But, this story passes my "smell test" none-the-less, so here it is):

The Hidden Hudson

In the early 1950s, the New York Central was rapidly phasing out their steam locomotive fleet. New EMD E-8 diesel locomotives were rapidly replacing their famous 4-6-4 Hudsons with many going to scrap.  At the same time, PRSL was still leaning heavily on steam, notably Pennsylvania Railroad K-4 and E6 passenger locomotives that were 20 years older than the NYC Hudsons.  Although they were still serviceable, they were rather old and their performance with the longer summer trains often left something to be desired. Since the PRSL was split between the Reading Railroad (RDG) and Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), they had to share the cost of the locomotives used by the railroad.  The PRR was supplying the bulk of the equipment and the RDG, was paying them dearly for the privilege of supplying 30 to 40 year old locomotives.  If the RDG had power to spare, they could have chipped in their own power, but they didn’t, so they paid the PRR.

The Reading Railroad’s Chief Mechanical Officer had a chat with his New York Central counterpart at a NY Railroad Club Christmas party in 1952.  The two agreed it would be worth borrowing a displaced Hudson to see if it wouldn’t be a good fit for PRSL passenger service.  After all, the PRSL was a flat, straight, high speed railroad very similar to the NYC and not at all like much of the Pennsylvania Railroad or Reading.  While they were not the 20^th Century limited, the long, seasonal shore trains operated by the PRSL at speed might just be a good “last hurrah” for the famous Hudsons.  They made a handshake deal to quietly get a freshly retired Hudson down to the Reading for the summer.

The PRR might not take kindly to their rival making a buck at their expense, in their own backyard, so the locomotive was towed to Newberry Junction where they had an interchange with the Reading.  From there, the Reading took it to Reading Shops where it was put into service, having its NYC markings painted out and the cab quickly stenciled with road number 220.  It is assumed the Reading did this to try to keep the PRR in the dark about this test, making it seem, at least on paper, like the latest Reading G3 pacific.

Reading 220 arrived at the PRR’s Camden Terminal Enginehouse as part of an engine exchange crew on June 13, 1953.  The crew at CTE were puzzled by this unique looking machine.  No Wooten firebox.  Weird 4-6-4 wheel arrangement. Booster on trailing truck.  They never saw anything like it before, but had no idea it was a NYC, ALCo built locomotive and certainly not like the Eddystone, Juniata and Reading products they were used to.  They serviced it and assigned it to a 10 car Atlantic City train.

The train departed Broadway on a Saturday morning with a RDG road foreman riding along to educate the crew and monitor the performance.  The train quickly got up to track speed, and even a bit more, briefly hitting 87 mph south of Newfield, arriving in Atlantic City five minutes to the good.  The engine was turned and headed back to Camden with the same train consist at 5:00 pm.  The return trip went smoothly with the locomotive having no trouble accelerating to and holding speed in the low 80. 

Disaster struck on the last leg back into Camden.  Just past Woodbury running at 70 mph, the main rod bearing on the right side started smoking.  The crew quickly brought the train to a stop.  The conductor and RDG road foreman hopped off and walked up to call the dispatcher.  Knowing that the RDG was still trying to play coy with their PRR counterparts, the road foreman chatted with the conductor and they decided to tell the dispatcher they just needed some help getting back to Camden.  He dispatched the second trick Woodbury yard crew up to tow the train back to Camden. 

While they were waiting for the rescue, they cut off the Hudson and set it out on a rusty siding for a factory that had gone broke during the depression, 17 years before.  The switch was still there, and although weedy, the spur was still serviceable.  The Hudson was tucked away out of sight of the mainline, the fire was banked and the boiler was blown down.  The Woodbury shifter with their ancient PRR H-8 showed up 20 minutes later, tied on, and the train limped on to Camden at 40 mph. 

On last run.  being set out near Gloucester.

The following Monday, the RDG road foreman debriefed the CMO in Philadelphia.  Getting the Hudson back on the road would be quite a problem.  It would have been one thing, after a couple of weeks of solid runs to the shore and back to have the PRR brass discover this NYC locomotive running on the PRSL, but quite another thing to have this first day failure news get out.  So, the plan was to just let things sit for a while.  Besides, they needed to figure out how to get the locomotive repaired and back on the road.  Towing it at low speed back to CTE and then having them have to get parts from the NYC in Harmon NY would ring too many alarm bells with PRR folk in Philly, so they decided to see if it could be repaired on the spur.  

The Reading sent a couple machinists over from Port Richmond to check it out.  At best, they would just need new brass for the bearing.  At worst, the crank pin would need replaced – a job for an engine terminal.  They worked for a few hours and dropped the rod.  Bad news - the crank pin was badly scored.  They drained the boiler and tender and dropped the ashes on the ground.  Doing nothing, at least in the short term, seemed like the thing to do.

Summer turned to Fall and then winter, and the Hudson sat.  Since the NYC had lent a retired locomotive on a handshake deal, no one at the NYC was looking for it.  The Reading CMO would puzzle over it from time to time.  Could they dig a pit and drop the driver?  Whose budget would that get buried in? 

By the time Spring rolled around, the PRSL track department had gotten permission from their sales department to pull up the switch to the siding.  It was clear no new rail customer was coming to the site.  That summer, the Reading CMO decided to bite the bullet and get the Hudson towed to CTE for the repair work.  He’d just have to schmooze his counterpart on the PRR to see if he could keep it relatively quiet.  Maybe a round of drunk golf? 

He sent some machinists back down to make sure the locomotive was otherwise good to tow.  When they reported back that the switch to the spur had been pulled up, he just sighed.  He gave the NYC CMO a quick call and explained the predicament.  They quickly decided the Reading would write the NYC a check for “locomotive parts” to cover the scrap value of the locomotive and that would be that.  Something never to be spoken about again.

There was nothing to be gained by bringing up the subject, so the Hudson just sat.  Trees and weeds grew up around the locomotive hiding it’s view from just about any angle.  Apartments were built on the old factory site in the 1970s and a fence along the perimeter of the property kept people from discovering the hidden locomotive.

Decades went by.  There were rumors of an unaccounted-for Hudson.  Retired, but never scrapped.  A few old heads at Reading Shops recalled working on a NYC Hudson.  The PRSL engineers who ran it that one day told stories of the weird locomotive, but nobody could make any sense of it, or chalked it up to locomotives being moved to Atlantic City for the occasional railroad conventions.

Then, in June 1991, some railfans were shooting the new Amtrak train with the through sleeper and diner from the Broadway Limited in Chicago, headed to Atlantic City and they stumbled across the rusty Hudson.  They came back a few days later and cleared some brush to get some pictures of it. 

A Hudson saved!  Good news?  Maybe.  The preservation community is tripping over each other trying to claim it for themselves.  Meanwhile, no single group has raised enough money to move and stabilize it, much less make it operable again.  Even figuring out who actually owns it isn’t clear.  Is it the Reading trustees?  The NYC/PC trustees?  Since it’s a locomotive, did Conrail actually have the rights to it?  Nobody seems to know.  Meanwhile, it sits where it last turned a wheel, waiting on a savior.

Awaiting a savior.