Big Boy 4014!

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Big Boy isn't, or wasn't, the strongest steamlocomotive ever built, N&W Y-6b's were stronger and had better tractive effort if I remember correctly and C&O's and Virginian's 2-6-6-6's were heavier, for which Lima got sued for buy either of the two...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi7Jac3htts

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF-6FKD0pr0

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JN3l-pcPVQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV8rA3UE-lc

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjxjLD00Pzc
 
But the UPs Big Boys were the largest MOST successful engines built. This will be the only one Track worthy since there retirement. The 3985 is UPs Challenger which was the predecessor to the Big Boy. There were 25 Big Boys built, numbered 4,000 - 4024. They first hit the tracks in 1941 and were retired in 1961or 2. Not sure. 4014 will transported from it's resting place in Pomona, California after September to Cheyenne, Wyoming where the restoration will take place at the UP shops facility.
 
The last revenue train hauled by a Big Boy ended its run early in the morning on July 21, 1959.
I think that N&W's last steam run was in May 1960...
 
Sorry, ma bad.....April 1960!

Data from N&W 3-1955 Locomotive Diagram book supplied in May 2005 by Allen Stanley from his extensive collection.
HP piston valves measured 14" in diameter while the LP valves had an 18" bore. Heating surface data from N W diagram book in Allen Stanley's large collection. Stanley also includes data on the extended combustion chamber variant. The tube and flue areas remained the same, but the superheater was reduced by 60 sq ft and the arch tubes by 41 sq ft while adding 100 sq ft of circulators.

Last in a series of compound articulated locomotives that ranked as the best. See earlier entries on the Y-3, Y-4, Y-5, and Y-6. All axles had Timken roller bearings and the valve gear used McGill multirol bearings.

The Y-6bs could divert live, high-pressure steam to the LP cylinders while working compound expansion. Pulling a load of 13,500 tons on the level at 25 mph, the Y-6b developed 5,500 indicated horsepower (cut-off of the HP cylinders of 60% and in the LP cylinders 55%). As E W King, Jr. (in Drury, 1993) summarizes the story: "In tinkering with the design over a period of 33 years, the road wound up with a locomotive capable of producing 5,600 drawbar horsepower at 25 mph with a top speed of 50 mph -- perfect matches for N&W's tonnage, grades, and curves ... while retaining the economies of compound operation and in a locomotive that weighed 100,000 lb less than either the [C&O's] 2-6-6-6 or [UP's] 4-8-8-4 [Big Boy]."

These engines were carefully maintained and well-designed, yielding to diesels only because the N&W could no longer afford to be the "odd man out" in the diesel parade. The last Y-6 was completed in 1952, and the last one ran in April 1960..
 
Awesome!! I remember seeing on on display somewhere when I was a kid.(No idea where it was but must have been in the early '70s)
What a monster!! I'd love to see one run.
 
T Bolt said:
Awesome!! I remember seeing on on display somewhere when I was a kid.(No idea where it was but must have been in the early '70s)
What a monster!! I'd love to see one run.
Click to expand...

Same here! If I remember it was in the middle of nowhere (back then) and my Dad made me and my brother and sister pose on it for a picture. If you look at the picture you can clearly see a sign that says "Keep Off" Like what harm could a few pre-teens do to that beast!
 
I which I could remember where I saw it. Can't be too far from Chicago. We made a trip up to northern Minnesota about '69, maybe it was on the way up there.
 
Glenn, here's a list of where the Big Boys are being displayed at the moment (?).
1.)4014 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Los Angeles Co. Fairplex, Pomona, CA display ALCO #69585, 1941
2.)4005 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Forney Transportation Museum, Denver, CO display ALCO #69576, 1941
3.)4006 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Museum of Transportation, St. Louis, MO display ALCO #69577, 1941
4.)4023 48842 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Lauritzen Gardens, Omaha, NE display ALCO #72780, 1944
5.)4012 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Steamtown National Historic Site, Scranton, PA display ALCO #69583, 1941
6.)4018 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] Museum of the American Railroad, Frisco, TX display ALCO #69589, 1941
7.)4017 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] National Railroad Museum, Green Bay, WI display ALCO #69588, 1941
8.)4004 48841 4-8-8-4 4'-8½" UP [Google Map View] US 30, Holliday Park, Cheyenne, WY display ALCO #69575, 1941

I hope this helps.
 
My dad used to say that it was rediculously powerful. That it could pull something like miles of freight cars at like 85 miles an hour and that it's massive bulk was destroying the roadbed. Not sure if any of this is true, but imagine being a kid and hearing this? The wonder.
 
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