New York Central 4-6-4s 5426 & 5429: Empire State Express Hudsons

Published: September 18, 2026

The New York Central dressed exactly two Hudsons to match the Budd Empire State Express. J-3a 4-6-4s 5426 and 5429 left Alco’s Schenectady works in October 1937 as ordinary Super Hudsons, two of the forty unstreamlined engines in 5405–5444. In 1941 the Edward G. Budd Company of Philadelphia put fluted stainless steel on the valances and tenders, and Chase H. Knowlton and George M. Davies drew a Dreyfuss-influenced bullet nose so the locomotives would look like the new day train. They were not the ten Henry Dreyfuss 20th Century Limited Hudsons, 5445–5454. They were the Empire pair.

The train was christened a streamliner on Sunday, December 7, 1941. 5426 had the inaugural consist. Pearl Harbor swallowed the publicity. The two engines held the assignment into 1946, then Niagaras and Electro-Motive E7s took the train. The shrouds were gone by about 1949–50. Neither locomotive was saved.

New York Central publicity photograph of a streamlined J-3a Hudson on the Empire State Express December 1941 Hudson Division curve

New York Central publicity photograph of the streamlined Empire State Express, December 1941, on a Hudson Division curve. The engine number is not readable in this three-quarter front view; 5426 and 5429 were the only two J-3as so shrouded. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · What they were—and were not · Alco J-3as, 1937 · Budd stainless, Knowlton and Davies · December 7, 1941 · Empire steam, then the Mercury · Specifications · Shrouds off, none saved

At a glance

Item	Detail
What they are	The only two New York Central Hudsons streamlined for the 1941 Budd Empire State Express. J-3a 5426 and 5429
What they are not	Not the ten Dreyfuss 20th Century Limited Hudsons (5445–5454). Not J-1e 5344 Commodore Vanderbilt. Not the train encyclopedia
Builder / class	Alco, Schenectady, October 1937. Class J-3a, the forty unstreamlined Super Hudsons 5405–5444. Serials 68860 (5426) and 68863 (5429)
Shroud	1941. Chase H. Knowlton and George M. Davies, Dreyfuss-influenced bullet nose. Budd fluted stainless on rear-truck valances and tender to match the cars
Train	Day New York–Buffalo, later sections to Cleveland and Detroit. Numbers 51 west / 50 east. Electric to Harmon; steam from Harmon west
Inaugural	Sunday, December 7, 1941. 5426 on the published consist. Pearl Harbor the same morning
Assignment ends	Niagaras and EMD E7s on the Empire by 1946–47. 5426 photographed still two-tone on the Mercury, 1947
Shrouds off	About 1949–50. Skirts often already gone. Both ran as plain J-3as afterward
Survivor	None. No New York Central Hudson was preserved

Class dimensions follow Locobase (NYC 1944/1946 diagrams) and Alvin Staufer. Inaugural date and consist from the train record. Information compiled September 18, 2026.

What they were—and were not

New York Central streamlined thirteen Hudsons, in three looks. J-1e 5344 got Carl Kantola’s bathtub casing in December 1934 and a Dreyfuss-like recasing in 1939. Ten J-3as, 5445–5454, were built in 1938 with Henry Dreyfuss’s finned bullet nose for the 20th Century Limited. 5426 and 5429 were a third style, applied in 1941 to two engines already four years old, so a stainless day train would have stainless steam. Count the fluting on the tender and the rear-truck valance: that is Budd, not the Century gray flannel.

The Hudson type, and the 275 engines the Central rostered, belong on the class page. The 1891 day train, 4-4-0 999, the 1941 Budd cars, and the name’s long afterlife belong on the Empire State Express page. This page stays with two road numbers.

Super Hudsons from Schenectady

Paul W. Kiefer’s J-3a was the last Hudson the Central bought: fifty engines, Alco 1937–38, 5405–5454. Forty came plain. Ten came Dreyfuss. 5426 and 5429 sat in the plain forty. Works numbers 68860 and 68863, October 1937, in the 68849–68869 block.

Against the J-1 they had less evaporative heating surface and more pressure. Staufer recorded that 275 psi bent main rods, so the setting came down 10 pounds to 265. Seventy-nine-inch drivers, 22½ × 29 cylinders, Baker gear, 14-inch piston valves, roller bearings on every engine and tender axle, trailing-truck booster. Engine weight 365,500 pounds. Starting effort about 41,860 pounds plus about 12,100 from the booster. Elesco feedwater heaters as built; a later Worthington shows up on destreamlined 5426 in Staufer. Scullin disc drivers when new; the Central mixed Boxpok and spoke centers later, as it did on the rest of the J-3as.

They were Water Level Route machines. From Grand Central the Empire ran under third rail to Harmon. Steam took the train from there: Hudson River, Albany, the Mohawk, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. Kiefer rated the J-3as 1,130 tons at 59 mph. Between heavy shoppings they ran on the order of 185,000 to 200,000 miles.

A Century nose with Budd fluting

Budd built the 1941 cars in fluted stainless—coaches, parlors, diners, a tavern-observation named Theodore Roosevelt, thirty-two cars in the order. The locomotives had to match. Knowlton and Davies, working in Dreyfuss’s vocabulary, kept the drivers and rods in the open, the way the 1938 Century engines did. The nose was a smooth bullet with the oval number plate and “Empire State Express” on the pilot. The lower boiler and cowl were black; stainless fluting wrapped the rear-truck valances and the tender tank. At night the driving wheels could be lit, another Dreyfuss idea from the Century. It was not a bathtub. It was not Loewy covering a K4. It was a J-3a with a stainless suit cut for one train.

The Central was still unsure diesels would last. Steam on a stainless dayliner was cheaper than a pair of E units and kept Harmon’s Hudson terminal in the picture. That calculation did not outlive the war by many months.

Pearl Harbor morning

The railroad timed the new train for the Empire’s fiftieth year. Sunday, December 7, 1941. Westbound 51, Harmon change, 5426 on the published first consist: RPO Alonzo B. Cornell, lounge Grover Cleveland, parlors named for Hughes, Lehman, and Miller, diners George Clinton and DeWitt Clinton, coaches, observation Theodore Roosevelt. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that morning emptied the lineside crowd the publicity department had wanted. The train ran anyway. It remained a successful dayliner. The locomotives’ fame is that date as much as the fluting.

Two engines, one train, then lesser work

5426 and 5429 were the assigned Empire steam. When one was in the shop a Dreyfuss Century Hudson sometimes substituted, which is why a bullet-nosed J-3a on the Empire in 1942–46 is not always one of these two. From Harmon west they were enough. After the war Kiefer’s 4-8-4 Niagaras and then EMD E7s took the name train. A circle of Nowak and shop dates puts the pair off the Empire assignment in the spring of 1946. E7s are on the train at Lyons in October 1947.

5426 did not go to the dead line. Staufer printed her in 1947 on the Mercury, still in two-tone, one set of drivers already swapped to spokes, Empire emblems off the pilot. John E. Pickett photographed her at Hudson, New York, in early 1946 with a centipede PT tender still on the Empire. 5429 turns up later in Chicago with a black PT tender and mixed Boxpok centers. Shop forces took the lower rear skirts off first. The rest of the stainless followed.

Specifications

Figures are the unstreamlined J-3a diagram (Locobase, NYC 1944/1946). Streamlining added weight; Staufer and the Dreyfuss ten are quoted at 365,500 pounds on the engine, the same number Locobase prints for the plain J-3a. Treat the table as the 1937 machine, not a separate Empire subclass.

Item	J-3a 5426 / 5429
Builder	Alco, Schenectady. October 1937
Works nos.	68860 (5426), 68863 (5429)
Whyte / class	4-6-4, J-3a
Cylinders	22½ × 29 in. Baker gear, 14-in piston valves
Drivers	79 in. Scullin disc as built
Boiler pressure	265 psi (275 as delivered; reduced after rod trouble)
Engine weight	365,500 lb
Starting TE	About 41,860 lb plus about 12,100 lb booster
Feedwater	Elesco as built. 5426 later Worthington
Tender (as built)	About 13,600 U.S. gal, 28 tons coal. Later PT / centipede tanks on some assignments
Shroud	1941–c. 1949/50. Knowlton & Davies / Budd stainless

Plain J-3as, then scrap

By 1950 both engines were ordinary Hudsons again. The J-3a class ran into the mid-1950s; neighboring numbers went in 1954–56. New York Central saved no Hudson. The largest remaining piece of any NYC 4-6-4 is a tender at Steamtown, from J-1 5313, which is not this story. 5426 and 5429 exist as photographs, as Lionel and MTH models, and as two numbers on the Empire’s 1941 page.

Sources

Llanso, Steve. Locobase 186 (J-3a) and 15868 (J-3a Dreyfuss). NYC 1944 and 1946 locomotive diagrams via Allen Stanley. Works numbers 68839–68878; Budd shroud note on 5426 and 5429; J-3a dimensions and 265 psi
Staufer, Alvin F. Steam Power of the New York Central System, 1961; and Thoroughbreds. J-3a rod trouble at 275 psi; 5426 on the Mercury, 1947, still two-tone
Doughty, Geoffrey H. New York Central’s Great Steel Fleet, 1948–1967, revised edition. TLC Publishing, 1999. Postwar Empire power
Schafer, Mike, and Joe Welsh. Streamliners: History of a Railroad Icon. MBI, 2003
Solomon, Brian, and Mike Schafer. New York Central Railroad. Andover Junction / MBI, 2007
SteamLocomotive.com, New York Central 4-6-4 notes. Thirteen streamlined Hudsons; 5426/5429 stainless cowling removed 1950
American-Rails.com, Empire State Express. December 7, 1941 inaugural; 5426 and 5429; shrouds 1950
American-Rails.com, NYC Class J Hudsons. J-3a 5426 and 5429 stainless cowling; Dreyfuss ten 5445–5454
Rome Sentinel / Carl Trainer, December 12, 2025. Breakneck Ridge, north of Cold Spring, December 7, 1941 publicity still (the cliff companion, not the hero on this page)

Facebook X Pinterest Tumblr Reddit WhatsApp Messenger