Yellow Belly Hudson

I thought the C&O Streamline hudson's were released to compliment the C&O turbine look and paint scheme, I believe these were matched with stainless steel streamlined cars, similar to the Zephyr.

I would love to see Lionel do a Vision line Yellow Belly Hudson.  Be in for that right away!

It pulled the "sportsman" before it was streamlined , not positive if this continued after..I take turns pulling  the  madison and streamlined behind mine.

I have the second Railking release of the Yellowbelly, from circa 2006 with PS2. Nice engine. It was cataloged with stainless cars with a Yellow stripe as, from what I understand, it would have pulled if the "Chessie" did infact run. The engine was a Christmas gift and I didn't buy the passenger cars until a few years later. Regardless, I did not purchase the cataloged cars. I purchased the MTH Railking 4 car Chesapeake & Ohio Blue with Yellow stripe cars. Not sure if they are prototypical but I like them a bit more than the stainless cars. The Blue cars are not 0-27. I would say, roughly, they are 16 - 17 inches long and look nice with the engine. 

Below are two photos taken a number of years ago with my engine. The first is the engine with Scale sized MTH Premier cars from the C&O M1 Turbine Passenger Set. 

Second photo is the engine with the Railking Blue/Yellow cars. I sometimes add a C&O boxcar in between the tender and baggage car. 

I've seen photos of it pulling C&O heavyweights, particularly head-end cars as well as the streamlined cars. You could also take a "modern view," and mimic the cars the B&O Railroad Museum attached to it in the 1990's. This photo is from that time period. The baggage car is the one used to carry Eisenhower's casket from Washington, DC to burial in Kansas. The next car is a C&O streamlined coach. The third, of all things, appears to be an RDC.

For comparison, here's the Lionel version of 490, seen at the Boy Scout Train Show, Dale City, VA, 3/10/12.

B&OBill

These are the two sets I have , seen in this pick 72' madison as well as the streamlined . Both the madison and streamlined are lionel , I beleive the mail car was K-Line

In its original orange color, the 490 - 494 would have pulled the streamlined Chessie cars on the connecting routes to the main Washington - Cincinnati Chessie route. Of course since the Chessie never ran, that didn't happen. From the late 40's to about late 1950 it would have pulled standard Pullman green heavyweights. In late 1950 the new tri-color streamlined cars came on line so from then until its end of service it pulled a mixture of tri-color streamlined, tri-color heavyweight, and green heavyweight cars. When the tri-color cars arrived supposedly some of the Hudsons were repainted yellow.

Ken

i can see patrick's photos, but i can't see B&OBill's and there aren't any thumbnails.  

Hmm, let me try again.....

B&OBill

I believe it was said in an earlier thread that the Lionel model was 1/48th scale. Any idea on the Rail King? I too would like to see this reissued, or better yet a new model. 

Steve,

The Lionel version from the 1990s was scale. The Railking is not scale nor is it an Imperial line engine but it is a very nice engine and looks good with Scale and Non-Scale cars. It is not ridiculously compressed IMO.  The original Railking version was PS1 and the 2006 version PS2. Having compared my 2006 Railking version with the prototype, I can say it is spot on with the exception of the running gear and a few minor detail parts. 

Lionel called the C&O Hudson semi-scale. This was probably due to Lionel using their NYC Hudson based frame and drivers. The NYC Hudson drivers are larger than those used on the actual C&O engine so that probably threw off some of the dimensions on the C&O model.

I had the RailKing version at one time and I think its just too short to look right. Ran a lot better than the Lionel version though.

Given Lionel's present trend of reissues and aversion to new tooling, it seems like this would be an obvious candidate for a reissue. Lionel just redid the NYC Hudson, so it seems most of the needed upgrade of the drive has been done. Also, there is a ton of room under the C&O Hudson boiler for additional smoke units for whistle steam and steam cylinder blowdown. If Lionel does reissue them someday, they need to do an original orange version as well as the more commonly known yellow.

Ken

I love the Lionel version  .  .  .   all except that god awful engineer's window.

I wish I could drill that out !

Eliot

By the way this is what the C&O Hudson looks like without the streamlining.

The Chessie was cancelled about the time the 494 was to have the shroud installed so the C&O shops did all the engine modifications and didn't install the streamlining. It probably would have looked better with the shroud.

Ken

Thanks all for the info. Unfortunately I cannot run the 60', 70' and scale size cars on my layout. I need to get the Rail King 027 cars that are 13.5" long.

I am anxious to find a set of Rail King 027 cars like this one to run with my Rail King Yellow Belly (PS 2.0).

The un-shrouded #494 looks awesome!

The LIONEL C&O aluminum cars go great with the MTH Hudson and run on O31.

Wasn't the yellow belly originally a F-19 pacific?

I vaguely seem to remember some C&O 0-27 cars on the "Make an Offer" shelf at Engine House Hobbies (www.enginehousehobbies.net). Not sure if that is 100% correct or not but I just remember seeing them. Ken had a few cars wrapped up in a single package. 

Thanks for posting the picture of the unshrouded version and all the info. I guess I will wait and hope for an reissue. I remember how hard that Lionel was to find when it came out originally. 

Yes, they were rebuilt from the F-19 class Pacifics.

Here's a picture of my Lionel version with some improved details to better match the prototype - front truck, tender steps, tender underframe, coupler lift bar, window frames, ashpan, stairs, and boiler walkways painted gray. Added the blue stripe around the headlight, painted the nose screens black as in most all the pictures they appear black due to road grime. Engine has a Frank Timko can motor,TAS EOB with an N&W J soundset, operating marker lights, and chuff sync'd turbosmoke.

Ken

sweet!  nice work

These are the 2 RailKing versions; top is Protosounds. w/ a longer tender; bottom is PS2.0

I have to say the Yellow Belly Hudson is probably the best looking steamer in the world ever to be put on rails. This from a guy who is a big fan of European steam.

In fact she is so pretty I think OGR should give us a center fold.