‘Locomotive of the Union Pacific Railroad to be restored to its former glory
6,300 horsepower, 132 feet long, weighs 1.2million pounds with a full load of fuel and can reach 80mph
The American Locomotive Co. in Schenectady, N.Y., built 25 of the monsters to Union Pacific’s specifications between 1941 and 1944, and they became legendary. They were the largest steam locomotives ever to work the rugged terrain of the American West, and by most standards the largest anywhere in the world, said Gordon McCulloh, a meticulous historian of Union Pacific steam power..’
Didn’t call them the ‘Big Boy’ for nothing!
Just magnificent, isn’t it?
Beautiful piece of engineering,what the article didn’t mention is that once over the mountains, 4014 could maintain 60 mph while pulling 110 loaded ore cars with a total weight of 4450 short tons or 8,900,000 pounds in tow.
It’s good to see some of our past being preserved,it’s also good to see even young kids come to complete attention whenever a steam Loco is around especially a Big boy.
Last of the Giants-
http://youtu.be/HR5dEc5VeNw
When I was a boy in the 1950s, I had a “Big Boy” model train set in the basement. My grandfather was an old retired railroad man on the C&O line and together we built a pretty neat little railroad complete with a town, river, bridges, tunnels and mountains. We named it, “The Barbour Line” and our trains always ran on time.
I have also noticed the lack of scale model train sets KG.I haven’t seen anyone with a train set since I was a young boy ( that’s a long time ago ). I had quite a few and I used to modify the freight cars to look like the suburban trains that I used to ride to school.Mind you , I did live next to a railway……when the locos used to pass I remember how excited I used to get…such raw power and the smell.
D.T.
It’s a great shame, D.T. and a worry. A kid with his nose glued to a smartphone (now, there’s a misnomer if ever there was one) isn’t learning much of anything, he’s simply a consumer of other people’s creativity.
I have Big Boy in HO scale along with a huge amount of other railway stuff. I wish I’d never started trying to re-live childhood – I should have invested the money wisely. The Big Boy will be nice to see steam but there will be many problems to overcome – its size works against it now and its not clear where it will be able to run without running into general clearance problems.
Even if it never runs on a main line, it’s a beautiful thing and good to see it restored.