Paul Kallus posted:I've been looking at the catalog pictures of the various J3A Hudsons and envisioning the custom-run versions and its kind of funny that nobody is making a totally darkened locomotive with as-built (smaller) tender. The closest is #5418, which I was liking the most (gray smokebox is neat) until I stared at it long enough and the polished cylinder heads look a bit out-of-place on an otherwise all darkened locomotive. Why would the cylinder caps be polished when the running gear is darkened? <snip>
Paul, this is the very (all black) version that is being correctly offered by Pat's Trains as No. 5416 (see below). The burnished cylinder heads on an otherwise freshly shopped all-black J3a was normal for that class of Hudson pulling The Twentieth Century in 1937-38. Also, No. 5419 in pictured in a 1938 photo having the identical appearance pulling The Century on page 92 of "20th Century" by Lucius Beebe*. The New York Central employed only reasonably sharp J3a's to pull "The greatest train in the world".
Respectfully,
Bob
* Owning Thoroughbreds is truly essential, but Beebe's book is also worth having in one's library. 
