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The original 50 x J3a class Super Hudson’s were built for “New York Central System” railroad by “American Locomotive Works”. Then in 1938, Henry Dreyfuss designed the “Art Deco streamlining” which was applied to the last ten of these J-3a locomotives.

Running 925 miles between New York and Chicago in sixteen hours, at an average speed of 59.9 mph, these magnificent locos developed 20% more HP at 65mph than the previous J-1s model.

A special feature of these beatufiul retro locos were the disc driving wheels, half with General Steel Casting’s Boxpok design with oval openings, and the other half with the Scullin type with circular openings.

The road numbers #5445 through to #5454 were allocated to these new streamlined locomotives on the New York Central System.

As capable high speed passenger haulers the Hudsons were commonly in charge of New York Central's famous 20th Century Limited and Empire State Express services.

Famous enough to have it's own Facebook page, you can head on over to see some old archive footage!