Locomotive Friday
UP’s famous Big Boy is making a sweep around middle America, and I was fortunate enough to see it. It was four hours late (ain’t that like a railroad!) due to issues with other trains with higher priorities, but despite the wait, was impressive as could be wished for.
First, a few facts: The locomotive ALONE is just over 85 feet long, and with a tender, 132 feet. Call it about half-a-dozen ’60s Pontiac Catalinas end to end. And, at 1,200,000 pounds, the largest class of steam locomotive ever built. That’s 600 tons of rolling stock on 24 wheels (4-8-8-4 for you purists). By comparison, an M-1 Abrams tank tips the scales at a svelte 74 tons mas o meno.
I found a spectacular spot a few miles out of town where I kicked rocks all afternoon as the cars drove by on the road. Visibility up and down the track was close to a mile. A hard core family and a train enthusiast who drive 180 miles to get there stayed the afternoon – several other folks pulled in, but mostly left after an hour or so. (Acknowledgement – a book of Eric Frank Russell short stories sure helped pass the time. That and reordering my glove box and reading my owner’s manual.) Finally trains started coming through – from about 8-10 feet off the track, a highballin’ freight train is seriously impressive.
Finally! The most unmistakable train whistle in the world (diesels just-don’t-get-it) down the track and the train went chuffing by. The big freights were faster, but the close-up impression of the Big Boy is overwhelming. I once was on a mountain bike sharing a tank trail with a few M-1s near Ft. Bliss and thought I had been impressed then….this blew that away. Size, speed, and proximity made it unforgettable.
The family had gone for pizza and kindly gave me a couple of slices – their train-freak little boy wanted coins to flatten on the track. They had only a quarter, so I went to my stash and gave him a shiny $1 coin. Heck, I pulled one out for me, too. They came out wafer thin, which was expected – what was NOT expected was that they left images stamped into the steel track! I would have bet cash green money the coin was too soft for that.
The crowd downtown, which had been over 10,000 people earlier in the day, had thinned considerably over the hours and I’m thinking there were maybe a thousand or so left. The police were lenient and let people cross the tracks to get better pictures, and generally get a lot closer to the train than I expected. One thing that struck me – UP guys were madly lubricating pretty much every moving bit with oil and grease while they stopped – I asked one of them how frequently they had to do that and he said “About every 60 or 70 miles!” And we thought PMCSing Army vehicles was a pain! When they vented steam from the system (right) it was LOUD – think the crowd REALLY startled loud.
Too short a visit… if you are near its route, I recommend making the effort. The link to the schedule is below.
https://www.up.com/media/releases/big-boy-4014-nr-240812.htm
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Pass this on to my daughter…she lives in Kansas. How close to the route, she’ll have to figure that out.
Here is the link to track it and its route UP: Steam Schedule
My stepfather used to enjoy train watching. When he passed, my half-sister spread his ashes at one of his favorite spots.
As for me, railroad towns and railroads themselves have been a consistent part of my life. My dad settled next to some tracks in Delmar, DE, where the trains would run maybe 50 meters away. The entire trailer would shake from passing trains. I used to put coins on the track too and wonder what ever happened to all of those. We had a few tracks that ran behind the trailer park in VA. There were a bunch of paths that were perfect for BMX bikes, and a local swimming hole on the other side of the tracks. It was also an easy path to get to neighboring areas, instead of trudging through the woods or walking down the highway.
Later, I lived near Pembroke, GA, and then bought a flipper home in DeSoto, GA, a few hours west on US-280. The entire US-280 corridor sees you passing through tiny railroad towns that have seen much better days.
It came thru St Louis this year and was great to go watch..Here is a photo I took coming out of the Union Mo. Tunnel in Aug of 2021.
“Call it about half-a-dozen ’60s Pontiac Catalinas end to end” Americans will do anything to avoid using the metric system. Heh heh…Bigger IS better…no matter what she tells you.
Would love to see this Big Boy chugging ’round the bend. Sent the linky from the other post on this to my Lady Friend that is BIG TIME Train lover. She really enjoyed it.
THERE ARE TWO kinds of nations, those that use the metric System, and THE ONE who has put Men on the Moon.
Jay Leno and crew joined the Big Boy in Council Bluffs Iowa and road it into central Iowa filming the trip for a future episode of his YouTube program
Regarding the impression on the tracks, here’s a fun metallurgical fact. Rail road rails are about 12% manganese by weight to prevent work hardening, which is the thing that lets you break a paperclip by bending it several times in one spot. The gold dollar coins are high in manganese. (I ain’t looked up the composition lately.) Thus, similar materials have similar hardness.
It’s been 40 years (+/-) since I had physical metallurgy, so consult your local profession engineer instead of relying my memory for anything that could get you or someone else hurt.
🙂
I was thinking similar, but not so exact in analysis.
Earlier (childhood) coins were silver, soft compared to the rails and wheels.
The new sandwich coins have copper in the middle, but the outer layers are a Ni-Cu mix, apparently a close match to the rails for hardness.
You have all read about my best friend Bub before. When we were kids Steamtown was located in North Walpole N H. We used to go to Bellows Falls Vt to Bennies store and buy cigarettes. Yorks if I remember correctly. Then we would cross the Villas bridge and clime aboard some of those great old steamers smoking and pretending to be engineers. Security was non existent at that time. Not likely anyone would fire one up and drive it away. There was one of those million lb engines there as well. Good times for a couple of kids.
It’s been great to see the UP 4014 get resurrected, now we need to see some more Eastern big steamers get back on the high iron, may I suggest N&W 1218? Regardless, we have “The Beast of the East”, Western Maryland Scenic #1309, THE LAST steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, and it’s a Compound Articulated Locomotive versus the UP 4014, which is a Simple Articulated. That means that on WM 1309 the steam enters the rear cylinders and gets exhausted to the front cylinders for use once more, while on #4014, it’s only used once. Compound Locos were popular among Appalachian Railroads because they gave solid tractive effort at low speeds hauling heavy trains, namely coal drags, while up in Wyoming, the main stomping grounds of the 4014, higher speeds were needed, thus a simple arrangement. During WWII, the AT&SF was loaned some of N&W’s compound locomotives, the crews liked the tractive effort, but alas, they lacked the speed needed on the Chicago-to-LA “Transcon” line.