Here we see No. 5450, first member of the second streamlined group of J3a Hudsons delivered by Alco in 1938. These last five locomotives were similar to the first five, but had roller bearings on their connecting and coupling rods as well as on all axles, plus Scullin disc drivers instead of Boxpok. My father took this photo at Englewood Station, Chicago, on a sunny afternoon in 1938 or 1939, shortly after the previous photo.

According to information from George Elwood's Streamline Hudson Discussion, No. 5450 experienced a boiler explosion at Canastota, New York in September 1943. It was out of service for more than a year due to the World War II steel shortage, and when returned to service had lost her disc drivers and her newly assigned centipede-type tender. However, a photo of her reportedly taken at Englewood Station in 1945 shows the Scullin drivers, with the side skirting missing over the third set of drivers. A vignette of No. 5450 at this same location appears in the Herron video The Glory Machines 3, and she is also shown in the now hard-to-find Chicory Productions The Century of the New York Central, Part I.

In 1939 artist Charles Sheeler created a painting entitled Rolling Power as part of a series of paintings published in Fortune magazine to celebrate American industry. The painting depicts the right trailing pilot truck wheel and first two drivers of No. 5450, with the cylinder and valve gear linkage. The oil-on-canvas painting is owned by the Smith College Museum.

Introduction of the J3s shortened the schedule of the Twentieth Century Limited between Chicago and New York to 16 hours. After a run of some 922 miles from Englewood to the steam terminal at Harmon, New York, the train would proceed under electric power into Grand Central Station, where its elite consist of passengers would receive the famous "red carpet treatment."