Running my Lionel prewar OO Hudson pulling a Scale Craft passenger coach and my postwar NYC 2333/2344 hybrid F3's(2344 chassis under late 2333 shells). Eventually this 4x7 fold down layout will be all OO once I find and afford enough of the track to do so. Enjoy!
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
Thanks for sharing, Mike.
Curious to see what size comparison Lionel OO to that of current day offerings, like from Hornby.
Nice work Mike!
I've said it before, but I think you've got that OO Hudson running BETTER than new!
Good score on that Scalecraft car, they can't be all that easy to find.
They are not easy to find, stumbled on that one. Lionel OO is about halfway between HO and S scale in overall size. Hornby is to the same scale, 1:76th, but the overall smaller size of UK trains makes them look more like HO. And running on HO track as UK OO always has, doesnt help either. There is a society in the UK, that takes their OO and corrects the track gauge, much as is done with the proto48 and proto84 folks in the states with O and HO scale. Most everything in American OO is hard to find. I will probably take me a couple years or more to find and afford enough track to fully make my layout OO as I want to use all vintage Lionel track as I can get 3 rail switches for it. If only Gargraves would offer a basic left and right hand switch for their hi rail style OO track!!
The OO Hudsons, are much like their bigger 700e/763/773 O gauge brothers. AC 3 pole field wound motor with worm drive on the rear driver, 3 position E unit and a typical size screw in light bulb just as used in larger O gauge engine. Just service it like any other big Lionel Hudson. The biggest issue found in these is a warped frame. Not from zinc pest, but from a design flaw that the headlight stand that the front boiler screw(in the stack) screws into does not touch the top of the boiler shell. So if this screw is more than finger tight, it pulls up on the frame. With the cat walk ladders sandwiched between the boiler casting and the frame casting, this pulling and pushing force pushes the pilot deck down, while pulling up right behind the cylinder casting. This can be carefully straightened in a home made jig. I take the frame with nothing but drivers left in place, and clamp it down to a board with a spacer to elevate the front of the pilot. My clamp puts downward pressure on the chassis right in front of the lead driver axle, I then use my micro butane gas torch to heat the frame slightly, then add a bit more clamp pressure, then a bit more heat. Then I leave it this way for a few hours. The heat helps the frame straighten back out without applying so much pressure that it breaks. I have done 3 engines this way with no problem. Then the pilot isnt touching the center rail and shorting out. The key to this process is having a flat surface and flat spacer so the frame stays square and doesnt end up with a twist to it. And the light use of heat to warm the frame some in the area were the bend is.
I am on the hunt for more classic OO stuff, especially buildings from Skyline and Ideal, along with the freight cars from Lionel to complete my Hudson set and a couple more Scale Craft cars, baggage and another of those passenger cars. Hudsons look best pulling varnish, not sure why Lionel chose freight to start off their line. NYC Hudsons would have only been seen on varnish in the late 30's when the line was introduced by Lionel. Another one of the miss cues that doomed the line after the war as it was not reintroduced after hostilities ended.
The biggest hinderence/frustration to modelers in this obsure scale is lack of track. On3 works but gives the older Lionel stuff fits as the gauge is just slightly different with 19mm vs 18.83mm along with flange depth. Tru Scale made some nice track back in the day, but rare as hens teeth now, more so than Lionel's track. All of the vintage 2 rail track has diameters larger than 4' table will hold. If someone would off wood roadbed track like the old Tru Scale line with the self gauging ties, the raw rail is easy to find and On3 turnout rail kits could be used on blank wood switch roadbed. Gargraves makes a "hi rail" version of OO track but there are no switches offered, which is a deal killer for most. Scale Craft and Midlin offered OO track but both are seldom seen. The trains are easy to find, there are always Lionel Hudsons and freight cars/sets, Scale craft rolling stock along with some Nason. But track, only thing on the bay is high doller Lionel and the pickins are slim most of the time. There is a nice loop of Lionel 2 rail but its diameter is to big for my layout. A 48" diameter is bigger than a 48" wide table, you need like 50 to 55 inches of table to work with at the minimum. Sadly, this problem will most likely never go away as the demand is to small for any company to entertain making a run of track in this gauge.
emdmikeHudsons look best pulling varnish, not sure why Lionel chose freight to start off their line.
That never made much sense to me either, even the scale Hudson ( the 700e) from the late 1930's had accessory freight cars, not passenger cars.
But for what it's worth, when the steam era was coming to a close, late 1940's to early 1950's, it wouldn't have been unusual to see Hudsons running out their last miles pulling freight.
Yes but not prior to WWII, at that time, the early to mid 1930s when Lionel was designing the 700e Hudson, they would have been on passenger trains nearly 100%. Passenger travel by steam train was in its prime at that point. The OO line would have been in developement in 1937 most likely with it being introduced for the holiday season in 1938, which was rushed from what I have read. With the NYC Hudson being J.L's pet engine, no supprise it was the choice for the OO engine, along with having the drawings on hand from the 700e, just a scale change in dimensions was all that was needed for the tooling makers. From reports of those in the know with the Lionel OO line, more was planned but the war put a stop to it. There are supposed to be a prototype for a 2 rail switch and more 2 rail track sections, so I am sure passenger cars were being discussed in meetings prior to the war. Had the war held off or not happened at all, it would have been interesting to see how long Lionel kept pushing the OO line, along with the push for more scale realism in O scale. Postwar labor costs was one big reason I have read that killled both the scale O engines and the OO line as both were labor intensive to produce compared to the semi scale O gauge with mostly cast in detail vs hand applied. Could Lionel have more influenced the battle with HO with a more intensive line of OO trains like they did with Std gauge vs gauge 1? Its interesting to ponder what might have been if the line had grown more prior to the war, or came back after the war. They had the tooling obviously, cant have been cheap to have it made and only used it for a few short years. Been a neat time to be a spider on the wall in the Lionel boardroom thru the war years as the line was planned for when the war ended. Or when the OO line was planned as even in those years it was obvious that HO was taking the lead in smaller than O scale trains and that motors were in the works to fit in smaller HO engines yet be robust. Lots of fun things to discuss and ponder, trying to get into J.L.'s mind in those years just after the great depression as Lionel made its moves into more scale like trains and moved away from the toy like tinplate prewar that was the norm.
Lionels postwar line quickly changed with lots of diesels/electics as the 50's came in, F3's, NW2, Alcos, Trainmaster, EP5 electrics and the GG1. There really wasnt a new ground up steamer after the late 40's. All were reworks of previous designs, mostly to fit magne-traction. Or cheapened to try to keep sales up. Steam died on the real railroads and faded to the background on Lionel Lines. Mike
Hey, look at it this way. Lionel came out with their N&W Class J 746 in 1958 (or so) and never made a passenger consist to go with it. At that time anyway.
Who knows why? Of course by that late date J.L. Cowan was out of the picture and Lionel's managment was lurching from one mis-step to another, apparantly not knowing what to do next.
Oh, the reason I brought up Hudsons pulling freights was to make things easier for you if you can't find enough passenger cars. If anybody says anything when you OO Hudson's pulling freights just tell them it's 1950 on the layout!
It may have just been a matter of practicality. It would be easier for Lionel to design and build 1:48 scale 40' freight cars to go around O-72 track than 80' heavyweight passenger cars.
I have wondered why Lionel chose to do the Hudson and Pennsy B6 in the first place. Seems to me a better choice would have been USRA 2-8-2s. The real USRA light Mikado and heavy Pacific used the same boiler, so Lionel could have used the same boiler casting on models of 2-8-2s and 4-6-2s. A USRA 0-6-0 would make more sense too, more railroads you could letter it for to sell better around the country.
BTW funny thing with OO/HO...OO is 4mm/ft., HO is 3.5mm/ft., so an OO model would be 1/8th bigger than the same model in HO. However, British locomotives tended to be about 1/8th smaller than their US counterparts, so a British OO Pacific and a US HO Pacific end up being about the same size models.
With tight curves, I think anymore than 2 more cars will create issues with the Husdon climbing the outside rail due to the load. I have a baggage car and another passenger coach found, that makes me a nice short train that might have run thru Indianapolis or from Detroit to Chicago. Just working out the trade details with the gentleman as I have a Scale Craft 4-6-0 he wants and he has track, some Lionel trucks for my two Scale Craft freight cars and the passenger cars I want. Yes, Lionel did make some missteps thru the years. Some of the OO was JL felt threatened by the then owner of Scale Craft and his vast amounts of money. JL was used to controling the naritive in toy trains, such as with Std gauge. He came up with it, its far from standard of anything(marketing ploy) but yet others like AF and such made trains to run on JL's Std gauge track. It has been thought that maybe Lionel thought they could do this again with OO vs HO. But the impending war and the waffling between 3 rail and 2 rail didnt help spend Lionel's R&D dollers well. A solid focus on 2 rail, with more track, passenger cars, more locomotives and such could have changed things, or not. Anyways, we have the little jewel of a Hudson and the freight cars to enjoy. Just wish track wasnt the issue that it is.
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