Almost Hudson (West Virginia)...

Blueridge  Mountains, Shenandoah Riverrrr...

Sorry, had to go there. 

This has nothing to do with the late, great John Denver, country roads, or West Virginia. Instead, this has to do with a neat little junked locomotive that I just resurrected all by itself. 

This is a proper HO gauge battery electric locomotive manufactured by Nomura and sold in the United States under the Cragstan brand. 
And it's almost a Hudson.

(Image via Wikipedia) 

This beast, specifically. A New York Central J-1B 4-6-4 Hudson class fast steam locomotive. 

Obviously, the Nomura model is not complete.

The most obvious omission are the pilot and trailing wheels. Other details are simplified, such as the driving rods and surface details. But the rest of the shape is there. This is an Almost Hudson, not quite HO scale, being closer to 1/96.

Even in HO scale, the siderods on a steam locomotive drive the additional wheels if they aren't geared already.You want as many powered wheels as possible for tractive effort. The good folks at Nomura had this covered - all six on the rails are powered.

Look at the mechanism. This very strongly resembles mechanisms from some of the better German toy train manufacturers such as Distler, who were a major influence on Nomura (and in fact whom they copied with their Santa Fe F unit). 

I have questions about the motor, which looks far larger than just a 6 VDC version. Ahead of that motor, though, is a mechanical marvel - a bellows driven smoke unit. Sadly, the "bag" on the bellows is ruptured, and so far in tests no smoke has been seen. While I am on the subject of tests, I suppose I should explain that "resurrected itself" comment from earlier. When I began initially testing the model, it didn't so much as hum or vibrate. It seemed dead. Once I removed the shell and tried again, it sprung right to life. It still runs in further tests, so I have no idea as to what happened.

In searching around on the Internet I have seen this model variously as an 0-6-0 and 0-6-2. Apparently Nomura built it as the latter, and the sets I've seen so far have that version. 

But can you add pilot wheels?

That's problematic, for two reasons.

 

First, the rear set of wheels on the pilot truck lack the lateral space for much movement. While not a problem for wide sweeping curves, for any layout I want to build that is a problem. 
The other issue is further upfront.

That little tab is what holds the shell to the chassis. It would definitely block the lead wheels.

Which brings up an interesting observation.

The way the chassis is assembled leads me to suspect that it may have originally been used on another model. I am still researching Nomura's production to see if they may have made more steam, perhaps for the home market.

I do believe, however, that this model could probably be "corrected" into a baby Hudson, or maybe a Pacific (4-6-2). For now, it has to wait.