UP - Big Boy coming through! Locomotive of the Union Pacific Railroad to be restored

[QDP2012]

"In its prime, a massive steam locomotive known as Big Boy No. 4014 was a moving eruption of smoke and vapor, a 6,300-horsepower brute dragging heavy freight trains over the mountains of Wyoming and Utah.

It's been silent for half a century, pushed aside by more efficient diesels, but now it's coming back to life. The Union Pacific Railroad is embarking on a yearslong restoration project that will put No. 4014 back to work pulling special excursion trains." -- DailyMail.co.uk

Big Boy coming through! Locomotive of the Union Pacific Railroad to be restored to its former glory -- DailyMail.co.uk

 

[haleve]

UP Big Boy & It's predecesor The UP Big Jack

UP DDA40X Centennial A/K/A Big Jack

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_DDA40X


UP 4-8-8-4 Challenger A/K/A Big Boy

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_Big_Boy

 

[scottyhetzel]

My dad use to model this train in O gauge . He would have been so proud. Thanks for sharing....it made my day.

 

[w2xq]

Wirelessly posted (Moto Droid Bionic: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.4.2; en-us; SAMSUNG SM-P605V Build/KOT49H) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/1.5 Chrome/28.0.1500.94 Safari/537.36)

Oh wow! I can't imagine a Big Boy being moved back onto rails. Wife and I visited Cheyenne in 2012. The locomotive is massive, black, incredible, unfortunately somewhat hidden behind a high chainlink fence. Had to be creative with the camera and a couple of lenses to avoid the visual interference. And there is a nice restaurant ~150 feet away. Anyone travelling to Denver should take a quick drive up I25 to take a look.

 

[N2ICV]

Yes Tom, Its going to run out west in 2 years or so..

 

[jaymatt1978]

Just curious i f anyone has listened to any of the communications??

 

[teufler]

Photos of a Big Boy

you don't really grasp how big they are until you have a person, barely as tall as a wheel.

 

[QDP2012]

Excellent pictures!

And, just think, these trains were designed using a slide-rule, a T-square, and a compass, not a PC.

 

[lazierfan]

Just curious i f anyone has listened to any of the communications??

The day I chased the UP 4014 Big Boy and its travels with the 'Hospital Train' as they termed it, 160.74 saw the bulk of the radio traffic in the Medicine Bow, WY area. It was very mundane traffic, talking about the 1/2 hour stop for regular running gear check and grease, and some weather advisories. Rain and snow dogged us for this leg of the journey.

 

[lazierfan]

At the completion of the restoration of the UP 4014 Big Boy, there will be three major engines running exclusively on steam from the UP shops at Cheyenne. In addition to the most recent acquisition, the UP 3985, a slightly smaller 'Challenger', which has been running the Cheyenne frontier Days excursion from Denver to Cheyenne, and most recently, the Circus Train from Cheyenne to Denver.

The circus train near Platteville, CO:

The third steam engine is the small 844 which picks up excursion duties from the 3985 when its undergoing maintenance.


All three have been converted to fuel oil to light the burner under the boiler, although the auger from the coal days can be plainly seen on the 4014 as of this writing.

 

[maalox]

nice train pictures.

 

[N5TWB]

There's wild YouTube video out there of a railfan nearly being turned into hamburger because he wouldn't get his face out of his camera and remove himself from being too near the track the day 4014 came into Cheyenne. Link below - watch the whole thing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwO-IWorGv4

 

[Tom_G]

I love to hear about these types of restorations.
Wish there was more train activity here in CT...

Thanks for posting this.