4-6-4 Hudson

The **4-6-4 Hudson** is a steam locomotive in the game Railroad Tycoon II. It becomes available in the year 1937, and is a solidly specified locomotive that could be used for passengers or freights, because it is both fast and strong. However, it is slightly expensive to maintain, so one will need to make sure that the Hudson is very efficient at its work to ensure that it remains profitable. It can easily haul 5 or 6 cars of heavy cargo at around 60mph.

## Strategy

The Hudson is a locomotive that is designed to replace older steam locomotives carrying passengers such as Class B12s or Pacifics. It is not quite as fast as the electric GG1, but built in the similar mould, and performs a similar role. It is however considerably more expensive than the GG1, and the sole reason why a person would choose the Hudson over it, would be because electrification is unnecessary in the scenario. The Hudson is also somewhat optimal for freight duties too, but the 4-8-4 Daylight (available in the same year), is probably in general more suited to the freight role, even if it more expensive to maintain. The 4-6-4 Hudson performs alright on most grades, but if the route at all goes above 4% in gradient, then the Daylight should be used for both passengers and freight, due to it's extra strength. The Hudson doesn't have great reliability or acceleration, so it really shouldn't be used on routes that don't allow the Hudson to reach it's full speed, and locomotives such as the Prairie should be used instead in this scenario. Overall, the eventual replacement of the Hudson will be the diesel locomotives such as the Alco-PA 1 (1947), or F9 (1949), which are much faster locomotives that can perform the same job at a similar price.

## History

The first Hudson locomotive in North America was built in 1927 for the New York Central Railroad (NYC) by American Locomotive Company (ALCO), to the railroad's design. The locomotive proved to be very successful and was named the Hudson type, after the Hudson River. Thirteen of these locomotives, one J-1 type and twelve J-3a types, were streamlined for use with named passenger trains like the *Empire State Express* and the *20th Century Limited*. Between the NYC and its subsidiaries, the Boston and Albany Railroad (B&A), the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (CCC&StL or *Big Four*) and the Michigan Central Railroad (MC), they acquired altogether 275 4-6-4 locomotives of several different types, the largest Hudson fleet in North America.

Because the 4-6-4 design was really only optimally suited to express passenger trains, which were dieselised early, the Hudsons were early candidates for withdrawal and scrapping. The Illinois Central railroad tried using a Hudson exclusively in freight service, but the locomotive proved to be highly unsuitable due to weight balancing and the size of the drive wheels, and wound up spending it's final years in passenger service.

None of the NYC locomotives survived and neither did any of the Milwaukee locomotives. Five Canadian Pacific Hudsons survive, including four Royal Hudsons and the un-streamlined Canadian Pacific 2816. Five of the Burlington Route locomotives survive, including the *Aeolus*. Other surviving Hudson locomotives are two each of the Santa Fe and Canadian National, and single examples from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, N de M and Nickel Plate Road.

**Trivia**

-The locomotive's in game model appears to be based on either AHM or Rivarossi's HO scale model of the New York Central J3a, which was first introduced in the 1970s by AHM. Hornby bought Rivarossi, and for a brief period of time, they still had the Hudson in production.