and you thought restoring a plane was hard

[Matt Gunsch]

Union Pacific just completed restoring one of the largest steam locomotives ever built, the Big Boy, without the Big Boy series of locomotives, the war effort would have been a much harder job. one Big Boy could do the job of several others locomotives. While it is not a plane, I am sure she hauled a lot of them as freight, as well as tanks, trucks and anything else that could be moved by rail, Built in 1941, retired to the railroad museum in Pamona CA in 1961, restoration started in 2014, first moved under it's own power since 1961 on April 30th 2019, currently en-route to Ogden UT

[Tony C]

Nice and looks a little bit bigger than those we get on this (the right ) side of the pond!

Remember being taken to see the Flying Scotsman when I was about 8 and she instantly became my favourite engine and has remained so, over the years. Somewhere, I have a photo of my son on the footplate of the Scotsman, when she was on the Swanage line, many years ago!

[quemerford]

I dearly wish my father had lived to see this: the 4-8-8-4 monster was his other true love and it has rubbed on to me too. I also recall back in the early days of the internet, doing a pre-Google (Alta Vista maybe?) search of photos for him. That taught me the perils of searching for 'Big Boy' photos!

[K5DH]

Magnificent! I hope I get to see it running the rails some day. There's a UP line a few miles west of here, and their steam locomotoves occasionally pass through the area on that line. Fingers crossed!

[Champ driver]

That's one heck of a massive machine, especially when you stand next to one, and my hat is off to the people that took on the huge undertaking to restore it to operate.
Thanks for the photo.

In Minnesota we still have 3 remaining Yellowstones of the 72 built. Almost as big as the Big Boy, slightly shorter and lighter but with more tractive force with their 2-8-8-4 configuration. They were built in the late 20's and early 30's and were in service until the early 60's.
These 3 were used on the Minnesota Iron Range hauling ore to the Duluth harbor.
Here's 2 of them.

https://www.johnweeks.com/yellowstone/index.html

Attachments

[maxum96]

I live not far from Cheyenne, Wyoming where Union Pacific rebuilt Big Boy 4014 and houses their vintage locomotives and equipment. For the last 5 years I've had multiple opportunities to tour Union Pacific's Cheyenne facility and watch 4014 being torn down and rebuilt. The attention to detail and depth of the rebuild was impressive to say the least. This past week I got two opportunities to see it run. It is MASSIVE and impressive! An interesting side note, I saw the 4014 in a museum in Pomona, California in the 1970's where it resided from 1962 until 2014. Never in a million years did I think I'd ever see it, or any other Big Boy locomotive (there are 7 others of them in museums), operating again.

[Dan Jones]

I love walking around an "idling" steam engine. It's the closest thing I've ever seen to a real life, breathing, living, machine. Very cool!

[shrike]

Nice and looks a little bit bigger than those we get on this (the right ) side of the pond!

It has to cover just a little bit more ground <G>. Notice in the photos that they are running extra tenders on all of the locomotives to meet the water demands. Many of the water stops along the routes are no longer avaialble.

[dbrown]

She is a beauty!

And BIG!

[bdk]

I'm at the Pomona Fairgrounds a few times a year for automotive events and visited the museum where this used to be stored. I couldn't imagine the resources required to restore something like this and never expected one to ever run again.

I am in awe that Union Pacific took this on. Seems that would be like General Dynamics restoring a B-36 to flight.

I saw 4017 in Green Bay, Wisconsin as a child and I remember it being a rusty mess. Looks like it has now been moved inside and been subject to a static restoration. Glad these old steam locomotives are being appreciated once again. I just hope UP has the money to keep 4014 operating for years to come. Might not be a bad idea to go see it or get a ride soon though. If the corporate winds change operational funding could dry up.

[wendovertom]

Those are some awesome shots!! I am hoping to catch these as they pass through Morgan City this week on the way to Ogden! Fingers crossed!

Tom P.

[Tony C]

What was the top speed of these engines, when they were in service, though I'd guess that they were build for pulling a large number of goods carriages, rather than passenger services, so speed wouldn't be at a premium?

[Matt Gunsch]

What was the top speed of these engines, when they were in service, though I'd guess that they were build for pulling a large number of goods carriages, rather than passenger services, so speed wouldn't be at a premium?

70-80 MPH for the Big Boy as it was designed for freight, the 844 was 100MPH

[p51]

I've followed this closely every since the first rumors came out that Union Pacific (UP) would extract the 4014 from the Pomona fairgrounds. Few know exactly what it took to get the museum there to hand over the 4014, but they did get a running diesel and a caboose in the deal (beats me why they would want a running diesel as they have almost no track to run it on, and no connection to the rest of the railroad world). I'm sure a lot of coin came with the deal and likely tickets for the members of that group any time 4014 goes anywhere?
Moving 4014 out of the fairgrounds was an epic quest, with panel track across a large parking lot, then to a light rail track and finally to the UP mainline.

Nice and looks a little bit bigger than those we get on this (the right ) side of the pond!

The Garratt locomotives got pretty big and a few got used in the UK, but yes, nothing the size of a Union Pacific 4000 class...

70-80 MPH for the Big Boy as it was designed for freight, the 844 was 100MPH

The 4000s were never designed to run at 80 MPH, that was ALCO's ad copy for what theoretically it could do. I think UP only ever needed them to run about 60, max. they had maximum adhesion around 35.
Out of 25 built, 8 still exist. I've seen all of them but the one in Texas.

[warbirdfinder]

Is there a schedule posted as to he route and dates for the 4014?