Big Boy photos

[Bigbjorn]

Here are some photos of Big boys 4014 and 4004 taken in June last year. I also have some of 4023 but my camera was playing up unbeknownst to me. The display was showing 800 ASA but it was stuck on 1600 ASA so I have badly overexposed photos. I will try to correct them as much as possible using the Nikon editing software or Photoshop.

4014 was in the California State Rail Museum at the State Fair Grounds, Pomona. In November 2013 it was moved on temporary tack to a main line and pulled up to the maintenance yards in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where it is to be restored and eventually to pull excursion trains. This is expected to take 3-5 years.

There are apparently eight survivors out of 24 built. Alco built 20 of them in one year, 1941, as well as carrying on their normal business. Can you imagine any Oz maker attempting that?

The survivors are:-

4004 Holiday Park, Cheyenne, WY.

4005 Denver, CO.

4006 St. Louis, MO.

4012 Scranton, PA.

4014 maintenance yards, Cheyenne, WY

4017 Green Bay, WI.

4018 Frisco, TX.

4023 Kenefick Park, Omaha, NE.


I would love to go on an excursion drawn by 4014 when restored.

[Bearman]

They would have been an incredible engine in their time. Looks like two cylinders on each side. What sort of HP are we talking Brian. Any statistics?.

[Bigbjorn]

They would have been an incredible engine in their time. Looks like two cylinders on each side. What sort of HP are we talking Brian. Any statistics?.

All on Wikipedia. They weighed 600+ tons.

[drivesafe]

They would have been an incredible engine in their time. Looks like two cylinders on each side. What sort of HP are we talking Brian. Any statistics?.

Thanks Brian and very jealous that you have had a chance to see them in real life.

Hi Bearman and if you go to YouTube and do a search for Big Boy, you will see a heap of old “films” of the monsters.

Also do a search for UP 3985 or UP Challenger. This is the “SMALLER” sister to the Big Boy but is still the largest active steam engine in the world.

There are heap of present day VIDEOS of the Challenger.

[Ausfree]

They certainly are an impressive locomotive!!!:D Just comparing them to the 60 class Beyer Garrets that operated on NSW railways in the 1950's and 60's, the Big Boy weighs twice as much as a Garret (just under 600 tons v 265 tons) and could pull twice the load (rated 3600 tons v 1100 tons). These figures are rough. As I have mentioned before, (on other Threads) I have watched double header Garrets pull loads up the Fassifern Bank and I remember them as an impressive sight. The Big Boy would have been REALLY something.

[Bigbjorn]

Here are a few of the overexposed photos of 4023. This is the best I could do with them. 4023 is in the Lauritzen Gardens, part of Kennefick Park, high on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and the I80 bridge towards Council Bluffs. I was told the movers had great difficulty getting it in there. It came by road on a low loader. The surrounding streets are an old part of the city and quite narrow.

These locos were built to pull heavy freight trains over the Wasatch grades between Cheyenne and Ogden. Prior to the Big Boys double heading was used on this section. Ogden was then a major rail centre with four main lines joining or crossing there and up to 200 trains per day entering and leaving Ogden yards. The expected speed in freight service was 60 mph. They were also capable of passenger service if required and a top speed of 80 mph was the requirement there.

One almost laughs when comparing this with many Qld. Railways country services in the steam days. Average speeds not much more than 20 mph on some runs.

[Bearman]

I had a look at some of the u tube vids yesterday. They certainly were an impressive steam loco. 625 tons, 132 ft long, 300psi pressure and capable of 80 MPH. Even had an auger conveyor to load the coal into the firebox. They would have been an incredible loco in their time.

[Bigbjorn]

Here is the biggest diesel loco ever used by the UP. It is also in the park at Omaha. Two x V20 EMD's. Would sound lovely under full load on a grade.

[JDNSW]

They certainly are an impressive locomotive!!!:D Just comparing them to the 60 class Beyer Garrets that operated on NSW railways in the 1950's and 60's, the Big Boy weighs twice as much as a Garret (just under 600 tons v 265 tons) and could pull twice the load (rated 3600 tons v 1100 tons). These figures are rough. As I have mentioned before, (on other Threads) I have watched double header Garrets pull loads up the Fassifern Bank and I remember them as an impressive sight. The Big Boy would have been REALLY something.

The advantage of the 60 class over engines such as this is that, OK, they had half the tractive effort, but they could run on any track in NSW. Compare for example the Victorian H class, the heaviest locomotive ever built in Australia (and lighter than the 60 class), which was only ever able to operate on the Wodonga line despite being built with the western line in mind - the necessary bridge upgrades never happened.

John

[drivesafe]

While I would love to see one of the diesels, they were a headach for UP.

The DDA40X, it did it’s job, but it was a very unreliable unit because it had a common crankshaft between the two engines and regularly broke the crankshaft. This meant they lost 6,600 HP every time one failed in a train.

They are the DDA40X, is also so known as the Centennial and UP did us a good turn when they introduced the first of them back in 1969.

The name Centennial was given to these units, to make the 100 years of UP.

There was a special steam hauled train, run from Chicago to either LA or San Francisco. The train was originally intended to be steam hauled all the way by UP wanted to show off their new units and so a section of the trip was then diesel hauled.

Had the train gone all the way by steam, it would set the record for being the longest steam hauled train trip in the world.

But thanks to UP not running steam all the way, a few years later and 3801 would get the distinction of running the longest steam hauled train trip.

Thank you Me UP.

BTW the original name was the Union Pacific Railroad. But in the mid 1990s, because the company had diversified into so many other areas, the dropped the word Railroad from their title.

There is another great UP steam loco still in service, the 844, and if you do a search on YouTube you may come across a gem of a trip it did in the late 90s.

It was out on one of it’s many special excursions when a freight train ahead of it had one of it’s units fail.

So they had the 844 assist it over the top of the grade.

There is some spectacular video of it pushing the freight train up the grade, while still hauling it’s own HUGE passenger train.

[Bigbjorn]

I was told by a local from Omaha that in the railroad's heyday, everyone in Nebraska had grown corn, worked for the railroad, or both. They don't refer to the railroad as the Union Pacific or the UP just "the railroad". The yards and maintenance complexes in Omaha, Council Bluffs, Cheyenne were and still are enormous complexes. Nothing anything like them in Australia.

[Bigbjorn]

The advantage of the 60 class over engines such as this is that, OK, they had half the tractive effort, but they could run on any track in NSW. Compare for example the Victorian H class, the heaviest locomotive ever built in Australia (and lighter than the 60 class), which was only ever able to operate on the Wodonga line despite being built with the western line in mind - the necessary bridge upgrades never happened.

John

The much smaller Garrets used in Qld. likewise became restricted in use due to the light rail and light ballast used in Qld in order to get more track for the government's money. The first Garret sent west from Rockhampton derailed itself on the range near Bungeworgorai by pushing the rails apart on a bend.

[Hoges]

The sight of those magnificent locos brought back deep memories. As a teen in the early 60s, l lived for several years just a couple of hundred metres from the main Sydney-Melbourne rail line between Moss Vale and Bowral. The grade between the Wingecarribee river and Burradoo was very steep and there were times when two Garret engines towing wheat and coal would begin to slip.. so they would drop a heap of sand, reverse most of the way to Moss Vale then go flat out and attack the grade... standing under the bridge on the bank of the Wingecarribee as steam trains crossed a few metres above was always guaranteed to enliven a boring day:D
Was even more fun late at night (10.10pm) when the standard gauge became operational and the Southern Aurora towed by two diesel electric locos would race south at close to 75 mph! Innocent days indeed... boredom was never an issue;)

[drivesafe]

The sight of those magnificent locos brought back deep memories. As a teen in the early 60s, l lived for several years just a couple of hundred metres from the main Sydney-Melbourne rail line between Moss Vale and Bowral. The grade between the Wingecarribee river and Burradoo was very steep and there were times when two Garret engines towing wheat and coal would begin to slip.. so they would drop a heap of sand, reverse most of the way to Moss Vale then go flat out and attack the grade... standing under the bridge on the bank of the Wingecarribee as steam trains crossed a few metres above was always guaranteed to enliven a boring day:D
Was even more fun late at night (10.10pm) when the standard gauge became operational and the Southern Aurora towed by two diesel electric locos would race south at close to 75 mph! Innocent days indeed... boredom was never an issue;)

Think we need a RAIL TALES thread, and I have just started one.

[p38arover]

Big Boy 4014 is to be restored.

Huge Big Boy steam locomotive coming back to life (http://news.yahoo.com/huge-big-boy-steam-locomotive-coming-back-life-073258235.html)

Click on the image in that article to open a gallery.

[Rurover]

Just hope I'm around in 5 years time to see it running again.
Would be worth booking a trip to the US of A just to see this monster thundering along the tracks at 100km per hour!

Alan

[Ausfree]

Big Boy 4014 is to be restored.

Huge Big Boy steam locomotive coming back to life (http://news.yahoo.com/huge-big-boy-steam-locomotive-coming-back-life-073258235.html)

Click on the image in that article to open a gallery.
Good to see, it certainly would be an impressive sight under steam again.:D

[drivesafe]

Hi folks, I subscribe to a yanky rail magazine and get ads for any features in a number of their other mags.

I got this e-mailed to me last week. Might be of interest to some of you.

- TRAINS Magazine (http://trn.trains.com/Home/Hidden/Marketing/Articles/2014/01/Big%20Boy.aspx)

[drivesafe]

here is a good clip of the Big Boy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR5dEc5VeNw