For the steam buffs — UP Big Boy to be restored

[kiwithrottlejockey]

From the Los Angeles Times....

Union Pacific to restore famed steam locomotive ‘Big Boy 4014’

By JOHN M. GLIONNA | 1:23PM - Monday, July 29, 2013


The famed steam locomotive Big Boy 4014 has been acquired by Union Pacific Railroad, which will restore it. — Photo: Union Pacific Railroad.

IT HAS been called the last of the giant freight locomotives, a lumbering behemoth known as the “Big Boy 4014.” For half a century it has been on display at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona, drawing railroad buffs from around the nation.

Now the mammoth steam engine is about to take another trip — to the vast plains of rural Wyoming.

Union Pacific Railroad officials recently announced that the company has reached an agreement to acquire the locomotive from the RailGiants Train Museum at the fairgrounds. The railroad said it plans to move the engine to maintenance shops in Cheyenne, where crews will try to get it back to running condition.

“We’re really excited about the acquisition of the 2014 Big Boy,” railroad spokesman Aaron Hunt told the Los Angeles Times, adding that Union Pacific will post updates about the move, planned for the near future. Updates will be posted on Twitter@RailGiants.

Hunt said the Cheyenne maintenance shops also maintain other operating steam locomotives, but the Big Boy restoration promises to be an enormous undertaking for the company’s Heritage Fleet Operations Team, given the locomotive's age and complexity.

Twenty-five of the massive and powerful engines were built in the 1940s to haul heavy Union Pacific freight trains over Wyoming and Utah mountains. The last was retired in 1962.

Union Pacific donated No. 4014 in 1961 to the RailGiants Train Museum. A year later the locomotive arrived in Pomona, according to a company news release.

"Our steam locomotive program is a source of great pride to Union Pacific employees past and present," Ed Dickens, senior manager of Union Pacific Heritage Operations, said in the release. "We are very excited about the opportunity to bring history to life by restoring No. 4014."

The Pomona railroad museum said the locomotive would remain there through the end of the Los Angeles County Fair in September.

“Our board of directors decided to return the locomotive to Union Pacific for restoration and operation because it will be the best way to preserve this locomotive for future generations of rail fans and students of railroad history,” the museum said.

Built in 1941, the Big Boy No. 4014 logged 1,031,205 miles hauling freight until its retirement on July 21st, 1959.

www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-union-pacific-big-boy-locomotive20130729,0,2255582.story

[suthg]

She is huge/massive. I have never seen an engine as large as that! What is it's designation? 4-8-8-6 or something? Plus the huge tender as well...

[TS]

Now thats what I'm talking about.!!

[Andy Wright]

My brother-in-law is in love with the things. I'd never heard of them until he told me about them and showed me the videos. Ttruly awesome. Exciting news.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Jul 30, 2013 20:25:43 GMT 12 suthg said:

She is huge/massive. I have never seen an engine as large as that! What is it's designation? 4-8-8-6 or something? Plus the huge tender as well...

The Union Pacific Big Boy locomotives were 4-8-8-4s. That is a four-wheel leading truck, eight driving wheels in the leading engine unit, another eight driving wheels in the second engine unit, followed by another four-wheel truck supporting the weight of the firebox. The tender was supported by fourteen wheels. Total weight of locomotive and tender (fully-fuelled and with water tanks full) was about 600 tons. Big Boy locomotives developed a maximum of 6,200hp and could produce 135,375 pounds of tractive effort to start a heavy train. By comparison, the most powerful steam locomotives in NZ (the K, Ka and Kb classes) developed around 30,000 pounds of tractive effort. However, although the Big Boys were the most powerful steam locomotives ever built in terms of horsepower, some of the big Norfolk & Western mallet-compound steam locomotives could produce around 150,000 pounds of starting tractive effort, although they couldn't develop anywhere near as much horsepower as a Union Pacific Big Boy. The Norfolk & Western mallet locomotives were used to drag huge coal trains over steep gradients across the Appalachian mountains in Virginia and West Virginia where sheer pulling power rather than speed was needed. They could shift loads that a Big Boy wouldn't even be able to get moving, but at speeds up to 25mph whereas Big Boys were designed to operate at up to 80mph.

Twenty-five Big Boys were built for the Union Pacific Railroad, seventeen of them were eventually cut-up for scrap, and eight Big Boys were donated to various museums and theme parks. And now one of the huge beasts is going to be brought back to life and roam the rails again as part of the modern-day Union Pacific heritage fleet.

[ngatimozart]

Wonder of they fit one of those in an AN124. Massive and impressive units.

[No longer identifiable]

Good post! Will be great to see a "big boy" back in action.

[skyhawkdon]

The father-in-law will be interested in this news. He has built an amazing brass model of a Big Boy (every part is individually hand made). Photos of the real train and his model below

































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[Dave Homewood]

Oooh, that's a cool model!

[skyhawkdon]

He makes them for a retirement hobby! Amazing hand skills. He is Grahame Berry (of Grahame Berry race cars and Almac Cobra fame in Upper Hutt). Top guy.

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Another interesting steam project in the USA at the moment is a fundraising campaign to put the former Norfolk & Western J-class 4-8-4 locomotive No.611 back on the rails. This locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1959, but was returned to service by the Norfolk Southern Railroad during the 1980s and into the early-1990s, before being retired to the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia once again. Now they are trying to put her back into service yet again. The locomotive was well-maintained during the years she was hauling passenger excursion trains during the 1980s and into the 1990s, and when it went back to the museum, it was properly inhibited, so it doesn't need a major rebuilt to put it back into service.

The Norfolk & Western J-class were regarded as the finest 4-8-4 locomotives ever produced. They were designed to haul heavy passenger trains across the mountain grades of Virginia and West Virginia. In the late-1940s, one of the class was borrowed by the Pennsylvania Railroad and put through a series of speed trials on the Pennsylvania's mainline through Ohio. They loaded it up with a 1,060-ton passenger train and accelerated it to 110 mph and held that speed for 40 miles.

• FireUp611.org

[suthg]

That photo of him standing beside the main wheels is quite surprising!! Awesome model

[wanganui]

That model is truly a work of art...

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Here are a couple of interesting video clips from the Union Pacific Railroad as they prepare Big Boy locomotive No.4014 for the long tow from the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Southern California to the Union Pacific workshops at Cheyenne, Wyoming....

[Luther Moore]

Would you be as excited as this guy if you ever saw it?

[phil82]

Jul 31, 2013 8:57:53 GMT 12 TS said:

Now thats what I'm talking about.!!

Mag-bloody-nificent!!

[kiwithrottlejockey]

[corsair5517]

What is it about these things that inspires such devotion?! They are just simply magnificent!!

And model engineers are true rock stars; I've seen work that defies accurate description without sounding like some sort of lame fanboy, but gee; they're clever! I made use of one in Milton, Otago - who had a large model steam train that ran around a track on the perimeter of his property - to make some very small bridge parts for a guitar I was restoring at that time!

[kiwithrottlejockey]