That's pretty, Roger. All of those Hudsons were beautiful. As I have lamented so many times before, I sure wish we had at least one of them left to touch. :tb-sad:
And another one from the Lafayette area. NYC eastbound at Lafayette Junction Larry Baggerly Collection
This last is a gorgeous photo, even better than the first one. Is the second photo a Hudson? I didn't think any J-Class had an Elesco feedwater heater, though I'm not familiar with locomotives assigned to the Big Four.
Nice photos - thanks. That second one makes me think it could be an H-10a/b Mikado or L-2b/d Mohawk. Trouble is the number looks like 1322 and that doesn't fit. My steam roster is not very complete, not showing all the re-numberings. The only number 1322 I could find is for an H-5p Mikado and I can't verify that it had an Elesco feedwater heater. The photo encoding has the number 2007 in it. That might indicate an H-7c Mikado that had a re-numbering. Definitely not a Hudson as they never had Elesco feedwater heaters that I know of. I also suspected a K-5b Pacific as it is pulling a passenger train, but not sure they ran on the Big Four and wrong numbers again. This one remains a bit of a mystery.
The Hudsons did have Elesco feedwater heaters, but they were buried in the smokebox, unlike that exposed one in the second photo. Take a look at the first photo, under the stack, and you can see one end of the Elesco heater protruding through the smokebox. Other models had Worthington and (the other one I can't remember) heaters. :tb-biggrin:
Aha, I thought those were ears so the Hudsons could hear the envious comments from other NYC classes about how gorgeous the Hudsons were....sorry, I thought it was funnier before I posted it. :tb-wacky:
Fitz, you are correct - the original Hudson design had Elesco feedwater heaters sunken into the top of the smokebox. They were later replaced by Coffin or Worthington feedwater heaters.
Mike, thanks. Coffin is the brand I couldn't remember, and thank God they were the "closed?" version, again not sure of facts, but anyway they were inside the smokebox, unlike the other Coffin version that extended forward of the smokebox like a giant eyelid. :tb-biggrin:
Ah yes, I remember the Coffin. B&M had some Berks with Coffin heaters..... (Kinda gave a new meaning to UGLY!)
For what it's worth, I have some old scans, most from Harold K. Vollrath's collection, showing the various smokebox configurations. I don't have pix of the pumps. Elesco ------------------- Coffin ------------------Worthington Compare the enclosed Coffin type to Hank's shot of the open type above!!
