Fast Hudsons

I picked up a general railroad book recently on a sale table at a bookstore recently and was reading the section on pre war speed records and touted the British Speed record by the Flying Scotsman or Mallard or whatever of 126 MPH. Karl Zimmerman was one of the contributors and with his familiarity with the NYC, I was a little surprised he did not contest that based on the documentation that has been published in the NYCSHS Central Headlight in the article by Carl Kantola on the high speed wheel slip tests, where they had the hudson going 140 MPH and the driver speed was 164 MPH. This was well documented with photos.
Why do you think this British Record was never publicly contested by the NYC or NYCSHS people.

Mike Fleming
Bartlett, Tn

Without knowing anything about this, I would guess that the Hudson never did this in the real world.

Which number in Central Headlight is this:
...published in the NYCSHS Central Headlight in the article by Carl Kantola...

I'm interested Mr C. Kantola has finnish origin family name.

Were the New York Central's high speed Hudson tests done with the locomotive moving? I have a vague recollection that therre were tests-- mainly to test the wheel/rod balancing and "dynamic augment" of forces between track and train-- done with the locomotive chained in place and the rail slathered in grease: when the drivers were rotating at a speed equivalent to something WELL over the speed limit on NYC's tracks-- perhaps the 164mph you mention-- the forces involved were enough to lift the locomotive visibly off the track. But it's a dim memory.

The NYCSHS article can be found in the 1st Quarter 1986 issue. The hudson speed was only 80 mph approaching the test zone - with the slip speed of the drivers on the first run at 127mph - second run at 140 mph and the third run at 164 mph. So the train was never actually travelling over 80 mph - probably why they never contested the British speed record.