Been a while since I did a review! This one is on BLI's new HO scale Dreyfuss Hudson from their Brass-Hybrid series. This one is the DC version.
This model represents how the Hudsons looked a little later in life, with some of the skirting removed from choice areas for better access for maintenance. When I first pulled it out of the box at the hobby shop, the owner of the store, I think another customer, and myself were all amazed at the quality of the detail. The work BLI put into the detail looks absolutely fabulous. Everything is sharp and clean as can be, and I wouldn't be surprised if most everything is as close to scale as you can get (while following NMRA standards). The model is constructed mostly out of brass, but the cylinders (minus the cylinder heads), drive wheel brakes, and rear truck are all plastic (apparently to reduce the risk of a short circuit. This is where the "Hybrid" comes in). The engine's underframe is a more typical diecast zinc alloy. The rest is solid brass as far as I can tell. The use of brass allows the major details like the skirting cutouts to be very thin and clean, yet durable. It also allows all of the fine separate detail to be much stronger than plastic would ever be. Every single pipe and grab iron is a separate part, made from wire or a casting, and I can't find a single one that is molded as a part of the body. The bullet-shaped nose appears to be rounded perfectly, and the headlight and razor casting, or whatever you want to call it, fit very neatly. The cab has a fully detailed and painted interior, although a crew isn't included like what was advertised originally. The windows have the clarity and perfect finish of clear acrylic, which they may very well be made of. The tender has a real coal load on top that looks far better than any molded coal I've ever seen, which is a feature that I would like to see on more high quality steam models. The paint finish is as perfectly smooth as you can get, and the brightness of the gray looks pretty accurate. The lettering and striping are very fine scale and are some of the sharpest I've ever seen. The drive wheels look very good and are appropriately painted silver, but the rest of the wheels are very bright nickel. Blackened wheels would have been preferable, but the bright nickel looks fine. The linkage is all metal and fully detailed, with a bright polished nickel finish (some oil had to be wiped off to reveal the finish). There's too much detail to describe without going on for a lot longer, so I'll go ahead and end that here by saying, you have to see one for yourself to really know how impressive this model really is.
The running qualities have been a little hit and miss for these models. Mine was about as much of a miss as you could get right out of the box, but everything was fortunately fairly easy to fix. After working everything out, the Dreyfuss became a very smooth runner. As I said before, mine is a DC model without the sound, smoke, and DCC. It is setup so sound and DCC can be installed very easily, if the owner should ever want. The speed control range is wide and responsive, starting at just over 2 volts. I run mine with the smooth drive wheels instead of the ones with tires. It reached a speed of about 75 scale MPH at 12V, which may be disappointing to those who would like to run it at faster passenger speeds. The lowest sustained speed was just under 3.5 scale MPH. The model runs almost silently aside from the wheel noise, and has little to no wobble (no wobble is practically impossible for a steam engine this size with a shorter drive wheelbase, especially on sectional track). The current draw running free was 0.13 amps on average, and the maximum stall current was about 1.1A. Electrical pickup is with all of the drive wheels and six of the tender wheels. The lack of a smoke unit throws the balance over the drive wheels off a little bit, so I would recommend putting 1.5 oz of weight in the front for DC users. The traction without the tires is perfectly acceptable for the average layout passenger train (8 or 9 cars on level track), and I would only use them if it was going to be hauling a train up any grades. The front drive axle is sprung. The couplers are metal Kadee #5 clones, which can easily be swapped out with scale size Kadees if wanted. The front coupler comes uninstalled, but it's very easy to put on in place of the front cover. I originally thought the rear coupler was too low, but then found it was the entire tender that sat too low by just over 1mm! I added 3 thin gray fiber washers from Kadee to each truck to bring it up to the right height. The tender needed oil on all of the axles out of the box and rolled stiffly, but it freed up considerably after some break-in time. The lighting is directional on the engine and tender and uses LEDs. The rear light is a more typical LED with a nice, bright incandescant glow. The front light is a very bright surface mount LED with more of a blue-ish tone to it, and it would have been better if they used the same LED as in the tender (it doesn't look bad, though). Overall, the running qualities are excellent, but fall maybe a step short of the best.
I'm very impressed with my BLI Hudson. The detail and finish is absolutely top-notch, and it's a great performer overall. They may be a little hit and miss, but I would recommend this model very highly to anyone wanting a good quality Dreyfuss Hudson for their layout or collection, especially since they're now taking orders for a second run.
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I think BLIs detail is great. I also think buying this model the way Darth Santa Fe did without sound and smoke is the way to go.
BLI has a really neat decoder and smoke features but there are issues.
Several of BLI's offerings (blueline and P2) use the EXACT same sounds (whistle, chuff, and background). If I am coughing up 3 to 4 hundred dollars for a Paragon 2 engine then it should sound better than a Blueline and more unique to that engine. Whats the point of the extra money. BLI needs to address this sound issue because it cheapens how neat the Paragon 2 decoders really are.
Also the BLI smoke is neat but what a mess!!! I had the P2 Hudson and after a few hours of running with the smoke it looked like I was running it through Criso tunnel. If you look at the Model Railroader video and photo reviews you can already see the mess forming on the engine.
This engine looks great but slapping a Tsunami decoder in it will really make it a standout!
Darth Santa Fe This model represents how the Hudsons looked a little later in life, with some of the skirting removed from choice areas for better access for maintenance.
This model represents how the Hudsons looked a little later in life, with some of the skirting removed from choice areas for better access for maintenance.
That's incorrect I'm afraid. The streamlining of these Hudsons didn't change during the brief period they wore the Dreyfuss styling. Remember this streamlining was applied in 1938, and was removed during WW2. The only difference between the BLI engine and the original 1938 design is the train originally had blue stripes separating the dark and light gray, with three white stripes thru the windows. This was changed beginning in 1939 or 40 to all stripes being white.
http://members.pioneer.net/~fitzrr/5445.jpg
Pictures and other models show some of the Hudsons having additional skirting over the drive wheels and in front, as well as on the top of the tender. Were they just built differently from eachother then?
These "hybrids" remind me of what AHM tried to do back in the 1960's, they used a brass superstructure with a cast metal running gear. Unfortunetly they ran like carp right out of the box and there wasn't much that could be done to them either. Also as they aged quite a few of them experienced "frame rot" and ended up being relegated to the junk box.
BLI has a *** good idea here and I'm glad to hear they run nicely because there is still no substitute for brass if you want fine details that don't break off in your hands.
That said I do think it would have probably been a better idea to use something more durable than "zamac" for the frame castings, brass would have been the preferred choice and is not that much more expensive and as the old advertising slogan went they don't call them "made out of lifetime brass" for no reason.
I've owned my old LMB NYC hudsons since the 1960's and they still run beautifully, have great detail, and no rotting frames under them.
The jury will be out for sometime as to how well the zamac holds up.
Nice review by the way............
Mark