And now for something completely different. Woooo woooo!
Total change of track today – y’know, when much of what you write about is dickheads, losers, and liars, you start to think everyone is a running politician jerk. So today we go for smiles, for at least a few of you DDWs.
The Big Boys were the biggest steam locomotives ever built, weighing in at a svelte 1,200,000 pounds each. The Union Pacific built 45 of them in the early ’40s and kept them in service until 1964. How big, you say? Their drive wheels had to be split onto two separate trucks to be able to negotiate standard curves, so they are 4-8-8-4 configured – four wheels on the leading truck, two 8-wheel driving wheels, and a four wheel firebox truck (all per Wiki, I am not a train wonk but love any big complex machinery that works.)Wiki
Back in 2014 the UP decided to restore number 4014 and it annually does a tour so people can see a big (132 feet long!) piece of our history. Well, this year’s fall schedule has been announced and for once the heartland, the REAL Americans, the folks in flyover country, get the lovin’.
Big Boy No. 4014 will depart on the “Heartland of America Tour” on Wednesday, Aug. 28 from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and travel across nine additional states: Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. The eight-week tour concludes in late October. No. 4014 will be on display in the following locations:
- Sunday, Sept. 8: Rochelle, Illinois (Chicago metro area)
- Sunday, Oct. 6: Houston, Texas
- Thursday/Friday, Oct. 10-11: Fort Worth, Texas
These are the only stops with access to #4014 – but she STOPS for public viewing at a boatload of other places.
Me, I’m stoked ‘cuz one of her stops is about 5 miles from the casa. Our town has one of those live RR cams that you can tune into to watch the trains (I suspect many, if not most, of the stops were chosen for that reason to maximise publicity.)
Now there’s the National Transportation Museum west of St. Louis at which you could climb all over the engines, stand in the cab, envision the great plains going by, feel the throttles and outrun those pesky outlaws! (in your mind of course) but for a kid, that was an all time high. I just pulled up their web site and amazingly enough they are still open (an uncomfortable number of years later) and you can actually still climb on some of the engines! I’m shocked that the lawers haven’t sued THAT bit of fun to oblivion. Bucket list item for sure, now. Sadly, that’s a long way from here…but 5 miles – that I can do. And intend to when #4014 chugs into town.
I know in the past there have been some train junkies who hung out around here, but I haven’t seen many comments lately from some of them. Hopefully (as seems to happen too often lately) they haven’t run off to that Big Roundhouse in the Sky on us. I’m hoping a few of you live in the right areas, still have those dreams, and just might maybe have the time and ability to go see a living piece of our past, running on rails as she ought to be. Her schedule is here.
Category: Historical
Steam locomotives are one of man’s creation that seems to be a living, breathing creature. No two of them, even of the same type, behave the same. I’m a former volunteer at a railroad museum that operates a large steam locomotive and working on the big girl never got old….but I did. It’s work for younger folks than me.
Enjoy your visit with the 4014.
I never even knew these existed. Our past is getting erased.
I am envious of your proximity to the Big Boy’s route. Union Pacific keeps the 4014 on their own system for many good reasons, so being as I am in northern Georgia, the closest she’ll ever get would be Memphis or New Orleans.
Likely because the 4014 is just too big for other railroads, that’s the reason why the DDA40X “Centennial” Diesels never left UP rails. The 3985 however once did a stint on CSX rails masquerading as a Clinchfield locomotive pulling their “Santa Train” through part of the Alleghenies.
When I lived in Nebraska back last century some buddies from Offutt and I flew to Denver and rode the train, pulled by UP 3985, back to Omaha. We were berthed in GREEN RIVER, a beautiful sleeper car, one of many. That trip was incredible and the price was low. My goal is to do it again one day.
Saw it a few years back when it rolled through Arizona. Watching that behemoth steaming down the track into Willcox was incredible, standing next to it was just indescribable. The engineering required to build that with the comparably primitive tools of the day makes me wonder where American ingenuity went.
Osha, China, lawyers, engineers that say it can’t be done and not enough people to say hold my beer.
And sometimes, not enough beer. How many awesome things grew out of a sketch on a bar napkin?
The people that came up with electric cars were
drinking Bud Light.
Or…
The males pimping electric cars buy their Bud light at Target.
My boyhood Sunday School teacher was an engineer. He would say engineering school taught you that something could not be done, then your job taught you how to do it.
Yep. Book knowledge vs real world application. College v trade schools v listening to the old timers on the job. The old timers working knowledge and application most likely not to be approved by the safety department.
Best engineers I’ve ever known were the southeast Idaho cowboys I grew up working around. Good old boys with barely a high school education and pretty good welding skills. Ponder a problem over a cup of coffee, root around in the scrap metal pile and produce amazing results. Learned more from those guys in my misspent yute than any class I ever attended.
Ponder a problem over a cup of coffee. Reminds me of a song,
“Over A Cup Of Coffee” by the Philly Castelles 1954 on the Grand record label. Met lead George Grant at UGHA years ago.
NO computers were used in the design and build of those behemoths, it was all done via paper and slide rules with maybe a mechanical calculator used from time to time.
“Choo choo chaboogie”
https://youtu.be/c8uxrypkqv4
One of my fondest memories of being a kid was playing with the Lionel train set my Dad bought long before I was born. I loved the little pills that provided the “smoke / steam” out of the stack. There was also a set of diesel electric engines but I never had the same level of interest in them.
Traveling the country as a full time RVer I spent time in more than one museum that had rolling stock outside. Always fascinated me.
Loved our Lionel train sets!
We had a set of Lionel trains in our basement. When the Long Island Railroad elevated the tracks along the Sunrise Highway from Queens NYC out to Nassau and Suffolk Counties, I remember the loud steam driven work train going back and forth plus those little hand carts with 2 men on each side of the hand levers pumping them up and down to move the cart. Basement was also a small arms storage place with around 3 or four cases of US Army small arms ammo that my dad took from Ft. Tilden Queens NYC which was the Coast Arty On the Far Rockaway coast line. Pop was a saver. ends up that sometime before 1950 and possibly 1952 or 53, someone broke into one of the no longer used AA gun Quonset huts along the NYC Belt parkway and made off with AA rounds, How much, I don’t know so Pop gets worried and calls up NYPD and they came down with a truck and picked up the small arms ammo. They were used to picking stuff up from Vets after the war. No arrest. Sorry to go off on a tangent.
Interesting to hear about how things usta be. Kid.s nowadays as well as some adults would be wondering why no arrests etc.
My kids have heard me and friends talk about what used to be no big deal. Caught with beer? The cop took it or made you pour it out and sent you home.
I do believe that I poured out far more beer on Friday and Saturday nights than I drank in the length of my career. Just the way it was.
The kids never minded, they just took the guy with the fake ID back to the beer store and got more.
Used to put pennies on the track when I was a kid back in
the fifties and wait for the train to flatten them.
It was a coal fired steam locomotive of the Boston and Maine named the “Constitution”.
Caught hell for it.
They ceased steam operations mid 50’s when diesel electric
became the king of the rails.
There is a wood mill a few miles from here and every now and
then I hear the whistle as a train approches. Music….
Yes, indeed.
UP #3985 used to be the world’s largest operating steam locomotive until 4014 got resurrected, upon 3985’s restoration to service, her break-in run was pulling 167 doublestack container cars unassisted, that ought to give a clue as to 4014’s pulling power, because the 3985 is a 4-6-6-4! I want to visit the National Museum of transport in Kirkwood again one of these days, it’s a pity the Frisco 1522 is no longer running, but here’s hoping she can once again return to the rails!
Outstanding post, David. And yes, it is a welcome change from the gloom and doom of the politics. I envy you the opportunity you’ll have to visit this piece of history. Would love to be able to see the Big Boy my own self. Lubs me some trains…’Specially Steam Locomotives. Take away the “Robber Barons and one has to say that the railroads did more to develop and tie this country together than any other single thing. And our rail network during WWII was a major contributor to us being able to win that war. My planned road trip in ’20 was to include a stop at the UP Yard in North Platte as I followed the path of the line across Nebraska. Canceled trip because of the Bat Flu Scamdemic. Most of the places I had planned to visit were closed for…reasons. I’ve looked at taking AmTrac to go visit my folks out in NE & SD, but the logistics of getting there from here, and the cost, makes me go hmmm. And I don’t want to just “see” places going by from a window, I’d want to stop and really “see” the places. Damn shame we don’t have the passenger service now that we had up until 1971. Whom amongst us that spent time in the ETO didn’t enjoy leaving the Kaserne, gloing to the Bahnhof, visiting other cities to see the sights? Damn shame we didn’t spend the same amount of $ on OUR train system as we did rebuilding the European train systems that we blew to hell and back during the war. Got a Young Lady Friend that is shore ’nuff a train freak. It’s in her family’s gene pool. She’s done all kinds of research and studies on Rail Systems and gives an excellent presentation to various groups on the history and impact of trains. Back when our Buddy CederQ over at Bustedknuckles was running a weekly “Old Trains Thursday” Thread, I’d copy and forward them to her. Made me all kinds of Brownie Points. CederQ had some great stuff with pictures and histories.… Read more »
Wife and I spent our first anniversary on leave with Eurailpasses. Hit Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and France; fond memories still.
A dangit. It is not coming to South Florida.
Well, you still have that US Sugar 4-6-2 that does excursions down there!
OK, this is enough to lure me back into Houston.
Way back in the early 50s I was a pup, and a railroad line ran behind our house on SE Houston. They would be moving cars around at night and the squeel of the wheels were a lullaby to me.
Like others I too would put pennies on the track.
Hermann zoo had (has?) an old locomotive that kids could climb on. Lotta fun.
Paternal grandmother lived near the tracks that divided West University Place and Bellaire. Heard the whistle singing all my young life.
Whistles and wheels made sweet music.
With all the history & heavy machinery buffs amongs this group, I’m hoping there are a few locomotive aficionados amongst you who might be able to help me out….
After taking off the uniform, I’ve started on a new career in 3D computer modeling & digital sculpture (think the artwork for video games & movies, or designing things to be 3D-printed). For a while now I’ve been wanting to create a 3D model of the infamous 1895 Montparnasse crash – you know, from the famous picture of the engine sitting on its nose after it crashes through the second-story wall?
Anyway, I cannot seem to find any information on the specific engine beyond it having been a “type 2-4-0” or “Porter” style – and there appear to be a lot of different variations on those. Finding the specific model of engine will help me model the specific details. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
There is a magazine called model railroad where people eat,sleep, breath anything train related. Maybe the town/city has a museum or history buffs that may be able to help. Maybe they speak English too?
The caption for this photo would be…
“Hey, fellas! Watch me do this real cool……aw, shit!”
Not the kind of train the military community is more commonly associated with.
In St Paul, at the site of the old Round House, there is a Rail Road museum where there are (if I remember right) something like 4 of these big old steam engines that are in various degrees of restoration. I was able to go there about 15 years ago when I living at the Minnesota Veteran’s Home in Hastings, MN.
I rounded out my n-scale collection by purchasing a 4-8-8-4 #4010. The engine is huge and the details are remarkable, even for n-scale.
It even has articulated trucks like the full size one to negotiate turns.
With any luck, I’ll take some time off and fly to Texas and see it in Fort Worth – and visit the Texas State Fair the same time.
Sad news if you’re a fan of this brand.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/model-steam-train-firm-to-close-after-88-years-because-of-anti-terror-red-tape/ar-AA1p2u7u?cvid=b3b905a0bce34a849c7e0b38a40e5082&ei=5