HEY FOLKS!
, in lew of the "Post Your Steamers" thread, and a few other threads that have been the subject of steamers recently, i thought it would be kinda neat to do a little history/info on MY FAVORITE STEAMER...The BIG BOY!!!:thumb: The ONLY railroad that owned these was UP:thumb: . by the end of the 30's, UP needed bigger engines then the Challengers to get the growing freight trains up the Wasatch Mts. to eastern markets, without ANY helpers. to do this, UP commissioned the American Locomotive works(Alco) to make a more powerful engine then their Challengers. UP engineers, and Alco came up with a 4000 class engine, the 4-8-8-4. the engine ALONE was 85' 10'' long, with the tender added it was a total of 132' 10'' LONG!
The engine weighed in at at staggering 1.2 million pounds!
the tender could carry 28 tons of coal, and 25 thousand gallons of water. these engines could travel 75miles on easy terrain, and about 40miles on steep grades without stopping for water/coal:thumb: . the Big Boy could do up to 80mph on flatland, and slugged it out at 12mph up the steepest grade, with NO helpers. the average weight of the train these engines pulled was about 38 HUNDRED TONS!
By the end of the 50's it was figured it would take 4 GP9's to equal the strength of 1 Big Boy!!!:thumb: In Sept. 1941 UP took delivery of the first of the 4000 class engines. these engines was to be called the Wasatch type, but that name did NOT go over well. on the smoke box door of the first 4000 class delivered, was a name scribed with chualk...Big Boy, and that became the name of these 4000 class engines:thumb: . UP made two orders of these engines, the first order was for 20 of them, numbered 4000-4019, and the last order was for five in 1944, 4020-4024. the last five of these were slightly heaver then the first order. these engines ran from Ogden Utah to Green River from 1941-1944, and then was expanded to North Platte Nebraska till the last run they made, on July 21st 1959. Just a note, the Big Boys DID have clearance to go as far west as Los Angeles, but NEVER did go farther west then Ogden. announce1 SOME MORE interesting notes, these engines were coal burners, however, #4005 was converted to an oil burner for 14 months, but was deemed unsuccessful, and converted back to coal
. the Big Boys were NOT the biggest steam engines made, though they were the most successful of the large class steam engines:thumb: . 8 of these AWESOME engines are around TODAY!:thumb: sadly, NONE of them are running
, nor probably ever will. contrary to how our models of these engines are made, ONLY the first set of drivers moved, the second set was stationary. fortunately for(me)those of us that have models of these, they made them so BOTH sets of drivers move:thumb:. if you were to make a prototypically accurate curve to run these "Monsters of the Wasatch", it would take a 40R curve to do it. I have more info on these AWESOME engines, but to spare you folks
ops:, i will call this lesson FINISHED!
announce1 Below are some pics of the Big Boys, the LAST PIC is MY Big Boy on my layout:thumb: . i hope some of you have enjoyed this
. THANKS!
-Deano
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