The Lionel No. 773 4-6-4 Hudson steam engine and tender from 1950 did much to revive the passion dedicated O gauge modeler Walt Urban Jr. has for toy trains. He reminds us that hobbyists who grew up during the 1950s will remember the annual holiday shopping season as being particularly nostalgic. Like him, many of them can vividly recall the thrill of waking up on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left under the Christmas tree.
Walt describes his greatest memory as the anticipation of a new Lionel train that would immediately find its way on the O gauge tubular track already mounted on a 4 x 8-foot sheet of platform arranged so it supported a tree fully decorated with colorful ornaments. Walt learned at an early age tinsel and electric trains were not compatible!
Walt’s formative years were spent growing up in a modest rowhouse in Philadelphia. “My father was in the truck repair business, and my mother was a traditional stay-at-home mom. Our family’s resources were limited, but there was always something from Lionel on Christmas morning that made the day merry and bright.”
Walt was only a year old in 1950, when Lionel introduced the 773 Hudson. “I remember my mother would take my younger sister and me to the major department stores in downtown Philadelphia the Friday after Thanksgiving. Stores like Wanamaker’s and Gimbel’s had huge Lionel layouts when I was in grade school. I learned all about the Lionel Hudson and never forgot it. It definitely left a lasting impression on me.”
Of course, what makes the year 1950 especially noteworthy was that it marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of what became the Lionel Corp. Co-founder Joshua Lionel Cowen wanted to celebrate the occasion by introducing an updated version of the prewar No. 700E O scale New York Central Hudson. The best way to do so was the highly detailed 773, which Lionel paired with the equally elaborate No. 2426W tender.
Not able to afford this iconic locomotive when it was first introduced by Lionel, Walt had to wait many decades until he could realistically imagine adding a 773 from 1950 to his O gauge roster. He was attending the train show organized by the Eastern Division of the Train Collectors Association in York, Pa., when he found a superb example of the Hudson and tender in their original boxes with the master carton.
What immediately struck Walt, he states, “was the size of the 773. It dwarfed the other O gauge locomotives from the postwar era that I already owned, including the Nos. 726 and 736 Berkshires and 681 Turbine, to name but a few.” Impressive features of the 773 in Walt’s eyes were the valve gear guides on the steam chest and the highly detailed boiler front and trailing truck. No wonder Cowen considered the Hudson his favorite.
Walt brought home his new treasure and set out to lubricate and service the 773. “Dissembling the Hudson to perform basic maintenance,” he writes, “was very different from working on my Lionel Berkshires of the same vintage. Fortunately for me, the Lionel Service Manual provided plenty of information that made the process of breaking down and lubricating the 773 fairly straightforward.” It is, in his view, still a masterpiece.
That’s the reason why watching his 773 from 1950 as it pulls a string of postwar Madison heavyweight passenger cars around his O gauge layout sparks memories in Walt of Christmases past when he was younger. He praises the Lionel Hudson as a reflection of the great age of steam and a world less complicated than the one we live in today.
