Union Pacific Big Boy 4014 ready to run!!!

[GO DAWG GO]

Union Pacific's Big Boy #4014 has been completely overhauled to good as new condition and is due to leave Cheyenne Wy. and meet up in Ogden, Utah, May 9th to participate in the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike ceremony. Get ready to hear about it on the news. Pictures attached were taken when it was on static display at Pomona.

This will be 4014's first excursion out of the overhaul shop as it is being completed now. Big Boy 4014 class is considered the largest and most powerful steam locomotive's ever built. They were designed to carry heavy freight and war materials over the Wahsatch mountains (Rockies) and did very well at it.
4014 was parked and on display at the Pomona fairgrounds since 1962.

Big boy is 132 ft long and weighs 600 tons. this should be quite a site!

[chapo]

Awesome!

[widebody911]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_4014

[GO DAWG GO]

Union Pacific Towing 4014 back to Cheyenne in May 2014. Before the overhaul.

[widebody911]

Big Boy Main Page

[widebody911]

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/

[legion]

My favorite steam engine.

I wanted an HO Big Boy very badly when I was younger, but they were kind of expensive...

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by GO DAWG GO

Big Boy 4014 class is considered the largest and most powerful steam locomotive's ever built.

Hey- no so fast!!!!

Big Boy versus Allegheny | Trains Magazine

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by LEAKYSEALS951

Hey- no so fast!!!!

Big Boy versus Allegheny | Trains Magazine

I believe he meant one of, but it got omitted. The latter words fit grammatically with one of the largest.

[Steve Carlton]

My first recollection is a day in December
Black iron steam engine covered in ice
Like some Precambrian monster
Moaning and snorting
Nothing was ever going to beat that beast
In a fair fight

First Recollection
Cowboy Junkies

My favorite song of theirs

[GO DAWG GO]

Its kind of like the P-51 vs Spitfire and the best propeller drive aircraft of WWII. Both had the nuances. But, Big Boy did carry more tonnage at faster speeds than most other. Again, arguably the biggest but did its part to help win WWII.
I'm waiting for the first glimpse of it out of the steam shop any moment now!

[sammyg2]

Brings back memories.
I remember taking a field trip to promontory point when I was a little kid to see where the tracks met, I even saw (one of) the original golden spikes.

goml

[pete3799]

At 600 tons i'd say the name is fitting.
Very impressive chunk of iron.

[Jolly Amaranto]

I have been on excursions behind its little cousin, 3985 a 4-6-6-4, a number of times. I think I heard somewhere that to speed up the restoration project they borrowed the near identical tender off of the 3985 to get the 4014 up and running as soon as possible. The tender caries the water and fuel, in this case recycled motor oil. The 4014 was converted to burn oil instead of coal during its restoration.

[Jeff Higgins]

That is just so freakin' awesome. I might just have to go and see that thing run.

My younger brother and I were pretty avid model railroaders back when we were young. We became big fans of the Norfolk and Western Y6B, a 2-8-8-2 configuration. It had more tractive effort, but less horsepower than the Big Boy. It was built for hauling their long coal trains so, as such, had smaller diameter drivers. It was our main motive power, with three units serving our make believe iron ore railroad. I believe a company called AHM or something made them, at a price a couple of kids with paper routes could afford. Big Boys and Challengers were only available as expensive brass models, so we couldn't run those.

For those unfamiliar with steam locomotives, driver diameter is how these things were "geared" for their different uses. High speed passenger locomotives could have as large as 80" in diameter drivers. Freight locomotives could have drivers as small as 53" diameter, or less. Slower speed locomotives also had fewer wheels on the pilot truck, the non-driven wheels under the smokebox. The Y6B, for example, only had two wheels on the pilot truck, as denoted by the first "2" in the 2-8-8-2 nomenclature. Intended for higher speeds, the Big Boy had four, as denoted by the first "4" in its "4-8-8-4" designation. Oh, and the last number indicates how many wheels are under the firebox, so the Y6B had two, the Big Boy four (these are, like the pilot truck wheels, not driven). This is a rough indication of horsepower potential on a steam locomotive - the size of the fire box. Bigger ones heat more water faster, generating more horsepower.

The Y6B ran on 58" drivers, so was intended more for heavy, slow freight. The Big Boy ran on 68" drivers, a compromise meant to haul fright at speed, or occasionally haul passenger trains. Their pilot truck and trailing truck configurations support these differences in use as well.

It's pretty easy to guess the intended use of a steam locomotive just by looking at its wheel layout and size. Engines confined to the yards, called "switchers", typically have no pilot nor trailing trucks, and quite small drivers. 0-6-0, 0-8-0, are typical wheel layouts. The ubiquitous freight engine was the 2-8-2 "Mikado", typically with somewhere around 63" drivers. A common passenger engine was the "Pacific", a 4-6-2 configuration with 74" to 80" drivers.

Articulated engines, with two sets of drivers like the Big Boy, came in two configurations, power-wise. The original articulated engines were "compound" engines, wherein the exhaust steam from the smaller, high pressure rear cylinders (that were fed directly from the boiler) was fed to the larger diameter, lower pressure front cylinders. These are easily discerned by their larger front cylinders. These were known as "Mallets", for whatever reason.

The Big Boy and other modern articulated engines were "simple", rather than "compound" engines. Both sets of cylinders got steam directly from the boiler. These are easy to pick out because all four cylinders are the same size. These are sometimes called "Mallets" as well, but that is technically incorrect. "Mallets" are compound engines, if we are picking nits.

Anyway, I think this is all pretty darn cool stuff. I understand the economics of it, but darn it, our railroads really lost something when they gave up steam. I cannot imagine what it cost to get this Big Boy up and running again, or what it will cost to keep it that way, but I sure am glad they did it. Just so awesome...

[GO DAWG GO]

Jeff,

I wanted the Rivarossi HO Big Boy when I had my paper route.. It was $69 dollars all day in Model railroader magazine. LOL. I have three of these now..G scale 4014, 4000 and 4005. Great explanation of wheel arrangement, configuration and torque profiles. I can see you are well read! thanks Buddy!

[Jeff Higgins]

Yeah, I really got into this stuff as a kid. Someday I might build another layout... We'll see - it's kind of like that's all I need right now, another hobby.

G scale - wow, that's a real oddball. It used to be there wasn't much available, compared to HO and N, or even O scale. Beautiful model.

It looks like I had it wrong with regards to the Y6B being a "simple" articulated engine. You can clearly see the larger front cylinders so, it must be a compound locomotive:



Here are couple of photos showing first the ubiquitous "Mikado" 2-8-2 freight engine, then the equally ubiquitous "Pacific" 4-6-2 passenger engine. The difference in driver sizes is pretty apparent.

[daepp]

Wow - you learn something new every day.

I went and watched 3985 come through/down Cajon Pass, then raced to meet it at it's next stop - circa 1992. All this time I thought it was a Big Boy.

I'd seen 4014 at Fairplex, and had seen the cab-forward Big Boy in Sacramento, but still I thought 3985 was one of them.

Thanks for the info!

[GH85Carrera]

One of my memories from long ago was accompanying a buddy's dad to a meeting of the armature radio club. They were all building their own rigs for short wave radio, which has nothing to do with the subject of this thread, BUT....

Their meeting was a functioning rail road yard. When we parked it was almost sundown, and a steam locomotive was just going through shutdown. It was belching and moaning and and making all sorts of strange sounds. It was dark enough I could not really see details, but it was almost alive with the noises it made. I could not tell if a human was in there doing anything our if it was just the normal shut down procedure. It was really cool.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by Tervuren

I believe he meant one of, but it got omitted. The latter words fit grammatically with one of the largest.

Hey, us east coast people need to feel good too!

I think Go Dawg Go has the awesome UP setup?

I've been working on my C&O layout recently- Nothing to his caliber, but I need to get some pics up.

One thing I think about researching the C&O, and the UP as well- The wartime capacity of the US during WWII- especially with motive power such as this- Axis powers were gonna get whupped! IT really was incredible.

To Higgins- I was just at the Roanoke museum recently and have some pics of the 2 8 8 2. What is weird is that the front end frame has a huge crack, like it rear ended something. I will post pics when I get back to my computer.