New York Central 4-6-4 Hudson streamlined steam locomotive + coal train (Iron Giant scene inspired) - real world photos added 1/30/24

[Murdoch17]

NOTE: As some of you might be able to guess, the loco was inspired by pictures of @SavaTheAggie's original streamlined Hudson locomotive from 2007... no instructions were used to build this engine. See the inspiration here on Flickr.

So you think I'm building a streamlined passenger train too, right? After all, it's a streamlined locomotive...

..WRONG! Yes, I know the streamlined Hudson's never pulled freight in the real world. HOWEVER: The Iron Giant animated film has a New York Central streamlined Hudson pulling a coal train that is badly wrecked (accidentally) by the robot. As I have the Iron Giant model already built, this was a no-brainer to make. Along with the engine and tender, there are going to be four coal hoppers, as you will see.

Front view of the loco. This Dreyfuss-style streamlined 4-6-4 steam loco is numbered 5448 and is mostly modeled after a real, long-scrapped New York Central engine.

The tender really should say the railroad's full name of New York Central instead of its initials, but I don't want to shell out the money for all those 1 x 1 tiles, so I'm using fewer 2x2 tiles instead to spell out NYC, as it's much cheaper that way!

The cab of the loco is actually unable to fit a mini figure inside. (It's a brick too short.)

These four heavily modified copies of the 1991 set 4536. (Blue Hopper Car) They lack the drop--bottom dumping feature of the set, as I made it much simpler (and cheaper!) by removing the playability from the cars. As you can see, I also had to shorten the train by one car from the original five down to four. This was because I ran out of room in the box to store them with some other freight cars.

Now, if the train gets wrecked by a big metal man, I obviously need to add him to the post too!

This is not my MOC: I bought the instructions for the model from B3 customs back in 2021. I found them on my hard drive again in late July 2023 and decided to build him in LDD. Then, in mid-August, I built him in real life... and promptly forgot to take photos of the completed model for over four months until November of last year. (whoops!)

The rear of the robot. The original models' rotating hip joints (as used in the Build Better Bricks instructions) were removed from this version of the model because it was not strong enough. If the parts were worn even slightly, then the robot would not stand up under his own weight, breaking at the hip.

Thoughts, comments or questions welcome!

Updates:

1/30/24

real world photos added of everything, including Iron Giant!

Edited January 30 by Murdoch17

[Shiva]

Thumbs up.

[Murdoch17]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:25 PM, Shiva said:

Thumbs up.

Thanks @Shiva!

Progress notes:

I just realized Anthony Sava's second version of the Dreyfuss Hudson from 2016 has the same number as mine. I swear it was a total coincidence, as I have only a few numbers left in my stash and that was the first one I picked out of the bag. I guess I will up the number to 5448 to keep it from seeming like I'm copying him too much. Also, I've found 172 parts for this model since yesterday, leaving 560 out of the 732 I started with left to go.

Edited December 3, 2023 by Murdoch17

[SD100]

That looks great, but 6 axles under the tender would look even better! NYC Tenders were HEAVY.

SD

 

[Murdoch17]

14 hours ago, SD100 said:

That looks great, but 6 axles under the tender would look even better! NYC Tenders were HEAVY.

SD

 

Thanks for the kind words @SD100! Yeah, I know it should have six tender axles, but adding in a sliding middle axle to the two tender bogies would make it cost more, and I'm also really trying to cut back on unneeded complexity of my MOC's.

[Murdoch17]

I couldn't help myself - it's not my fault.

Let me start over: I made a streamlined New York Central 4-6-4 Hudson digitally a few days ago, and suddenly had the intense, uncontrollable urge to make matching passenger cars for it. So, I took the 20 year old Santa Fe Super Chief cars and designed some NYC passenger cars from the bones of the older sets. The original train was MUCH too long for my needs, and it didn't have regular, ordinary coaches so I modified it a lot. I kind of got carried away, but it should work in real life. (I hope)

So, like I said: I couldn't help myself - it's not my fault... I blame my insane need for every engine to have a train to go with it.

[Shiva]

Could there be a matching shunter too? ;) :D

[Murdoch17]

7 minutes ago, Shiva said:

Could there be a matching shunter too? ;) :D

Nope. I don't think the NYC had any switchers that weren't plain black. Especially steam ones. Sorry @Shiva!

[Shiva]

Well, a black switcher then? Or, maybe you already have one :)

I forgot to write earlier, nice work on the passenger cars too.

[Murdoch17]

On 12/6/2023 at 2:35 PM, Shiva said:

Well, a black switcher then? Or, maybe you already have one :)

I forgot to write earlier, nice work on the passenger cars too.

@Shiva thanks! And yes, I do have one or more.

Main posted modified today, 12/8/23: coaches added to first post, all-new pictures uploaded and text restructured.

Edited December 8, 2023 by Murdoch17

[Shiva]

Thank you for the updates :) + thumbs up.

[Murdoch17]

I was looking at my New York Central streamlined coaches and the original Santa Fe Super Chief cars that inspired them, and realized I could do a better job at the making the roof than what had been available when the Santa Fe cars were designed.

I eventually decided to use the 2013 inside tour set (Villy Thomsen Truck - set 4000008) as a starting point, and copied the idea of that model's roof for my NYC coaches. The observation car gave me trouble with this new roof, as I couldn't get it to curve easily, but it eventually was made to behave for the most part... it's not perfect, but it works for me! 

NOTE: Two 1x2 curved slope pieces are missing from the LDD version.

Thoughts?

[Shiva]

Thumbs up from me.

[Murdoch17]

Here is a fun little poster for the engine I'm (still) working on. I've reworked the entire loco except for the tender since I last showed it. The locomotive is also now two studs shorter in length, and is going to have BBB Xtra-small wheels for the leading and trailing bogies. (the wheels you see in the picture are just stand-in's) New pistons and a redesigned fin were added on as well.

It's a digital only MOC right now, but the loco will be built in real life soon. (The coaches have been moved to this loco / thread. As such, they will not be built in NYC colors.)

Thoughts?

Edited December 27, 2023 by Murdoch17

[Murdoch17]

...and so it begins!

I started at 680 bricks for this MOC, and have 231 left to go order / find. This means I've found 449 bricks so far, or a little under 2/3 of the way complete. (Yes I used a calculator for all that math!) Sadly, any further real-world progress will have to wait until parts are ordered (or more parts are found), as I've reached an impasse.

The first post has been cleaned up a lot... perhaps a bit too much?

Edited December 28, 2023 by Murdoch17

[Murdoch17]

...a new train for 5448 to pull is coming into view!

I know the streamlined Hudson's never pulled freight in the real world. HOWEVER: The Iron Giant animated film has a New York Central streamlined Hudson pulling a coal train that is badly wrecked (accidentally) by the robot. As I have the Iron Giant model already built, this was a no-brainer to build. Along with the engine and tender, there are five coal hoppers and one caboose. I've started finding parts for the hoppers and caboose, and the latter model needs less than 10 parts until it's done. (The hoppers need just shy of seven hundred parts until they're done.)

The first post has been updated completely as well with more pictures and text.

[Shiva]

Nice!

How does your Iron Giant look?

[Murdoch17]

4 minutes ago, Shiva said:

Nice!

How does your Iron Giant look?

You asked, and now you shall receive, @Shiva:

This is not my MOC, by the way: I bought the instructions for the model from B3 customs back in 2021. I found them on my hard drive again in late July 2023 and decided to build him in LDD. Then, in mid-August, I built him in real life... and promptly forgot to take photos of the completed model for over four months. However, this issue has been rectified, as you can see.

The original models' rotating hip joints (as used in the Build Better Bricks instructions) were removed from this version of the model because it was not strong enough. If the parts were worn even slightly, then the robot would not stand up under his own weight, breaking at the hip. I found this out when I built my Classic Space version of the giant in 2021. As such, the Iron Giant can no longer sit down.

[Shiva]

Well, it can stand :) And too much sitting is not good anyway?

Cheers for the photos.

[Murdoch17]

The caboose is now missing just three parts, and the five hopper cars still need ~700 parts.

[Murdoch17]

Main posted edited 1/7/24 to add in the new hoppers:

I've changed the five hoppers to be dark gray versions of set 4536 - blue hopper car - from 1991. My reason is simple: less parts used = less money spent to order said parts. They are smaller, and I can get more of them built if I want to. I also closed up the top and got rid of the dumping play feature - the cars are now permanently full of coal.

All the parts found so far and sections built for the five hopper cars. (The wheelsets have axles and wheels, but they just aren't installed yet.) I'm currently sitting at 167 parts remaining to finish all five 4536's VS. the 700 I would have needed to finish the old 10017 versions.

Edited January 7 by Murdoch17

[Murdoch17]

Quick update on the hoppers: down to 106 parts in 12 types for a grand total of $15 before S&H. Will certainly be ordering the hoppers soon!

[Murdoch17]

Down to 156 parts left to go for my streamlined New York Central 4-6-4. This means I've got less than a quarter of the 680 parts I started with remaining. (Also, the hoppers remaining parts were ordered yesterday!)

[Murdoch17]

I gave up looking for the 72 remaining parts (seen above) I probably don't have and just ordered the rest of the NYC streamlined Hudson project. It cost $12 for the eight BBB wheels (that were combined with the 2-6-2's wheels and ordered a week ago) and a little over $31 for the rest of the parts once the shipping and handling was applied. So ~$43 for the whole project isn't too bad... it's actually practically a steal!

[Shiva]

Cheers for the update :)