Rail Fans!

Union Pacific will join the nation in celebrating 250 years of American independence and innovation this year with its first-ever coast-to-coast steam tour led by the legendary Big Boy No. 4014.

The first leg of the tour starts Sunday, March 29, with the Big Boy and several historical passenger cars from Union Pacific’s Heritage Fleet traveling west to California from Cheyenne, Wyoming—the steam locomotive’s homebase. The first leg of the tour ends Friday, April 24, back in Cheyenne.

Two major public display days are scheduled:

- Friday and Saturday, April 10-11: Roseville, California

- Saturday and Sunday, April 18-19: Ogden, Utah

A daily schedule with additional stops, along with a map of the route, will be released closer to the tour’s launch.

Note: There will not be any passenger excursions offered on this western leg of the tour.

## About the Union Pacific Big Boy

The Union Pacific Big Boy is a type of simple articulated 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive manufactured by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) between 1941 and 1944. It was operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue service until 1962.

The 25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul heavy freight over the challenging Wasatch Range between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming. In the late 1940s, they were reassigned to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they continued hauling freight over Sherman Hill to Laramie, Wyoming.

Today, eight Big Boys survive, with most on static display at museums across the United States. One of them, No. 4014, was reacquired by Union Pacific and meticulously restored to full operating condition by 2019 in time to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad.

For the latest details, full schedule updates, and to track Big Boy No. 4014, visit the official Union Pacific steam page:

https://www.up.com/about-us/history/steam/schedule

This historic tour highlights the enduring legacy of American rail innovation—stay tuned for announcements about the eastern leg! 🚂

How It Works!

I found this Video to be so fascinating, I chose to include it here.

Big Boy to the Rescue

As a child (2~5) I lived in Bridgewater in a 2nd floor apartment. From the porch landing I could watch the Railroad heading East toward Beaver or on to Pittsburgh. There was a Spur that ran an incline behind the feed store on Sharon Road up ON to the streets of Beaver. Many a times I watched a steam engine pulling a train up that hill followed by a 2nd steam engine pushing. Never did I imagine 65 years later it would happen again!

Jun 29, 2023 10:30 AM

A freight train had stalled trying to make the grade going west thru Blair Ne. The 4014 was on its way home from the college world series in Omaha and was at the right time and place to help the freight train get over the hill.

Fun fact. The last time a bigboy pulled/pushed freight was back in 1959. This was the first time in 64 years a bigboy did this! fantastic!

Fun fact: Big Boy's pullage rating went up several times over their lifespans not *only because they were being improved, but because the company kept realizing that the engines were a lot more powerful that they thought.

#Wreck Of The 4005 (Big Boy)

Misc

The C&O M1 - The Engine that Ate Itself

HELPERS CUT-AWAY on the FLY at the Top of CAJON PASS - TRAIN MEETS - TRAIN RACES - Non Stop Action

How Railroad Crossing Signals Work

🔴Live🔴 Cajon Pass California, Summit / Silverwood Cam (BNSF'S CAJON SUB)

Union Pacific’s “Big Blow” Turbines: World’s Most Powerful Locomotives That Ate Their Own Profits

How Distributed Power Works

What Are Spring Switches?

Click Here

How a Diesel-Electric Locomotive Works

Steam on Horseshoe Curve Part II

Train Wrecks

The Wreck of the Broker | What Really Happened in the Woodbridge Train Disaster of 1951

The Train Wreck of the MIDNIGHT FLYER at Winslow Junction, NJ (July 2nd, 1922)

The Wreck of the Red Arrow | 1947 Railroad Disaster Reconstructed

Steam Engines

Baldwin locomotive works model 1026, conolidation number 111.

Built in 1926 by Philadelphia's Baldwin Locomotive Works, this narrow gauge 2-8-0 Consolidation spent 40 years hauling bananas through El Salvador before finding its way to Colorado's Georgetown Loop Railroad. The number 111 operates on one of America's most notorious stretches of track, crossing the Devil's Gate High Bridge, a 95- ft tall trestle that spans Clear Creek Gorge. When this beast creeps across that bridge at dead slow speed, you can feel the whole structure tremble beneath its 38 inch drivers.

This Baldwin Consolidation packs serious muscle, featuring 16x 20in cylinders that generate enough force to pull trains upgrades that would make modern engineers quit on the spot. What makes the Georgetown loop truly frightening is covering just two miles between Georgetown and Silver Plume while gaining 640 ft through 4.5 miles of track. The route includes horseshoe curves and multiple creek crossings with grades hitting 4%. The number 111 runs on 3-ft narrow gauge track, meaning there's precious little room for error on those curves. One miscalculation and you're learning to fly, courtesy of gravity. Baldwin built this machine to handle tropical terrain. But watching it navigate Colorado's mountains feels like tempting fate. Today, it still operates tourist excursions, giving riders a firsthand taste of what it meant to trust your life to steal, steam, and the steady hands of an engineer who knew these mountains didn't forgive mistakes.

American Locomotive Company. Alco 4-8-8-4. Big Boy number 1404.

Built by the American Locomotive Company between 1941 and 1944, the Union Pacific Big Boys were the largest successful steam locomotives ever constructed. At 133 ft long and weighing 1.2 million pounds, these monsters were heavier than a Boeing 747. The 4-8-8-4 configuration meant 1668in driving wheels pounding rails with 135,000 375 lbs of starting tractive effort. These beasts were designed to haul 3,600 ton freight trains over the Wasatch Mountains unassisted, tackling grades that would break lesser machines.

The boiler operated at 300 lb per square inch, feeding cylinders 23 and 3/4 in in diameter with a 32 in stroke. What made them terrifying wasn't just their size, but their assignment. The big boys operated between Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, over Sherman Hill, where altitude reaches 8,640 ft. At those elevations, oxygen is thin, weather can turn lethal without warning, and a runaway train becomes an unstoppable force of destruction. The frames were articulated, essentially hinged to allow them to negotiate curves that would derail a rigid locomotive of that length.

Engineer Otto Jabelman's team designed them to travel smoothly at 80 mph, but normal operations kept them below 60 mph in freight service. Peak horsepower hit 6,290 at about 41 mph. Today, Big Boy number 414 operates as Union Pacific's heritage locomotive, restored in 2019. Watching this mechanical titan climb Sherman Hill, you're witnessing engineering that pushed the absolute limits of what steel and steam could achieve. Alco built 25 of these giants exclusively for Union Pacific. They weren't experiments. They were answers to an impossible question. How do you move maximum tonnage over mountains that want to kill you?

Norfolk and western TE1 class. John Henry number 2300.

In 1954, Baldwin Lima Hamilton and Babcock and Willox created a monster that looked like it rolled straight out of a diesel nightmare. The Norfick and Western number 2,300, nicknamed John Henry after the steel driving legend who died racing a steam drill, was the longest steam locomotive ever built at 161 ft. This experimental steam turbine electric weighed 818,000 lb in a C plus C- C plus C configuration. so massive it couldn't fit on any of N&W's turntables.

The Babcock and Willox water tube boiler operated at 600 lb per square inch, double the pressure of conventional steam locomotives. The steam turbine produced 4,500 horsepower at 8,000 RPM, creating a Banshee like whoosh instead of the traditional chuff chuff. Engineers reported it sounded like a jet engine from hell. The turbine generate 175,000 lb starting tractive effort and 144,000 lb at 9 mph. But here's what made it truly terrifying. The automatic boiler controls were dangerously unreliable. The system would randomly spike pressure or drop it without warning. Cold dust and water constantly infiltrated the General Electric traction motors, causing electrical shorts and fires.

Crews reported that operating the John Henry felt like trying to control a nuclear reactor on wheels. The toxic combination of extreme steam pressure, electrical systems, and coal combustion created multiple catastrophic failure points. After just 3 years of troubled service, during which it spent more time in shops than on rails, N&W scrapped it in 1957. Number 2,300 was stricken from the roster January 4th, 1958 and cut up in 1961. The John Henry proved that combining steam turbine technology with railroad operations was like trying to harness a tornado possible but practically suicidal.

Virginia Railway Class AE 2-10-10-2 number 800 to 89

In 1918, Alco's Skenctity Works built 10 of these articulated mallet compounds that were so massive they had to be shipped in pieces. The cabs and low pressure cylinders were removed for transport and reassembled on site. The Virginia's Class A E2-10-10-2s featured 48 in low pressure cylinders, the largest ever used on any US locomotive. These cylinders were so enormous they had to be inclined upward several degrees just to clear the rails. The boiler was the widest of any locomotive at 118 1/2 in diameter at the rear tube sheet.

These monsters generated 147,200 lb tractive effort in compound mode or a terrifying 176,600 lb in simple mode. They weighed over 684,500 lb and stretched nearly 100 ft with their wheelbase. What made them scary was their territory, the 2.07% grades over Clark's Gap Mountain 1. AE hauled 110 loaded coal cars totaling 17,250 tons from Princeton to Rowenoke. The locomotives operated on the steepest, most punishing sections of the Virginia, where grades and curves would destroy ordinary engines.

The outside frame design meant everything mechanical was exposed. You could watch massive rods and counterwes thrashing like industrial hammers. The tenders were abnormally small due to turntable limitations, requiring more frequent stops in hostile mountain territory. These machines operated for 34 years until 1952, primarily as pushers on grades that would stall conventional locomotives. They handled loads that seemed physically impossible, proving that Alco understood what it meant to build locomotives for railroads that operated beyond normal limits. None survived scrapping, but their legacy remains. When you need to move 17,000 tons of coal over mountains, you build something that looks and operates like it came from an industrial nightmare

Baldwin Locomotive Works K36 Class 2-8-2 Mikado

Baldwin's Eddie, Pennsylvania facility delivered 10 of these narrow gauge monsters to the Denver and Rio Grand Western Railroad in 1925. The K36 designation indicates approximately 36,200 lb of tractive effort, making these the most powerful narrow gauge steam locomotives Baldwin ever built. Each K36 weighs 187,100 lb with 143,850 lb riding on 44in drivers. The 20x 24in cylinders combined with a boiler pressure of 195 lbs per square in generate enough power to move serious tonnage up serious grades. The firebox measures 145 square ft with a great area of 40.2 ft. Among the largest ever built for narrow gauge locomotives, the K36s operated on the Durango and Silverton narrow gauge railroad, hauling trains through the Animus Canyon, where the track clings to cliffsides hundreds of feet above the river.

One section, nicknamed the Highline, runs along a ledge blasted from solid granite with a sheer drop on one side and rock wall on the other. There's no guardrail. There's no margin for error. When a K36 is pulling a train through the High Line at 15 miles per hour, passengers on the outside can look straight down and see the Animus River far below. The route from Durango to Silverton covers 45 m with grades hitting 2.5% on curves so tight that longer equipment can't navigate them. 4K36s remain operational on the Durango and Silverton today, while five more operate on the Cumbre and Toltech Scenic Railroad.

When you're riding behind a K36, you're experiencing what railroading meant before safety regulations and modern engineering. It meant trusting Baldwin's metal work and the engineer skill against gravity, momentum, and mountains that don't care about your schedule.

K28 class 2-8-2 Mikado

Built by Alco Skenctity, New York Works in 1923. The K28 class represented the first modern narrow gauge locomotives on the Denver and Rio Grand Western Railroad. These 10 engines featured 18x 22in cylinders, 44in drivers, and generated 27,500 lb of tractive effort at 200 lb per square inch boiler pressure.

The 28 designation indicates their pulling power in thousands of pounds. Alco's engineers incorporated modern features like vshirt valve gear and superheating, making these locomotives significantly more efficient than earlier designs. What makes them particularly interesting for mountain operations is their superior balance. Engine crews actually prefer the K28s despite their lower power. Because Alco's design runs smoother, making it less fatiguing during long days wrestling trains through mountain terrain. But that smoothness comes at a price.

The firebox design can be tricky when the engine's working hard. The clamshell style fire doors tend to pull into the backhead due to draft. And any leaking flu mean lost draft on the fire, making it harder to maintain steam pressure exactly when you need it most. 3 K28s remain operational on the Durango and Silverton numbers 473, 476, and 478. Number 473 has been converted to oil burning and is fully operational. Number 476 also burns oil and runs regularly. These locomotives weigh 254,500 lb loaded Alcobuilt locomotives for railroads worldwide. But the K28s represent their understanding of what narrow gauge mountain railroading demanded.

When you hear one climbing towards Silverton, you're hearing the sound of 1920s engineering that's still earning its keep a century later. That's impressive. It's also slightly terrifying when you remember it's running on track that's seen more than its share of accidents, fires, and floods.

Baldwin Locomotive Works K37 Class 2-8-2 Mikado

Here's where things get weird. The K37 class started life as standard gauge Denver and Rio Grand Class 190 consolidation type locomotives built by Baldwin in 1902. Between 1928 and 1930, the DNRGW's Burnham shops in Denver rebuilt 10 of these engines into narrow gauge K37s, essentially creating new locomotives using only the original boilers. Everything else was built new.

The K37s generate approximately 37,700 lb of tractive effort, more than the K36s, making them the most powerful 2-8-2 Maccados on narrow gauge track. The outside frame design places driving wheels between two chassis frames with cylinders, rods, counterwes, and valve gear on the outside where you can see everything working. When a K37 is running hard, the motion of all that machinery is mesmerizing and slightly unnerving. What makes them scary is a reputation they didn't entirely deserve. When the Durango and Silverton originally acquired 4K37s, they found that number 497 was hard on the track and struggled with the Animus Canyon section. This created the perception that all K37s were track killers. The truth was more mundane.

The number 497 had suffered trailing truck damage in a 1960 wreck, causing mechanical issues specific to that locomotive, the Durango and Silverton, now operates the number 493, which underwent extensive restoration, including conversion to oil burning. It runs alongside the K36s and K28s, handling the same demanding service. The K37s represent depression era resourcefulness. When the D and RGW couldn't afford new locomotives, but needed more power, they took what they had and built something better.

When a K37 rumbles through the Animus Canyon, you're watching the result of that engineering desperation, still earning its keep in the 21st century

Pennsylvania Railroad S1 Class 6-4-4-6 duplex number 6,100

In 1939, the Pennsylvania Railroads Altuna Works completed the most ambitious passenger locomotive ever built and possibly the most dangerous. The S1 number 6,100 was a 6-4-4-6 duplex drive locomotive stretching 140 ft 2 1/2 in, making it the longest rigid frame reciprocating steam locomotive ever constructed. Designed by Baldwin's Ralph Johnson with streamlining by Raymond Loey, this millionpound monster was built to haul 1,200 ton trains at 100 miles per hour.

The General Steel Castings frame alone weighed 97,620 lb, the largest single piece locomotive casting ever made. With 84inch drivers and 76,43 pounds of tractive effort, the S1 could theoretically hit speeds that terrified even experienced crews. Unconfirmed reports claim it exceeded 150 mph, which would have been a world steam speed record. But here's what made it truly scary. The S1 was prone to violent, unpredictable wheel slip at any speed.

The duplex design meant two sets of cylinders driving separate wheel sets on a rigid frame. When one set slipped, it could overspin catastrophically before the engineer even noticed, potentially tearing the drive mechanism apart. The locomotive was too long for most PRR curves and turntables, limiting it to the Chicago Crest line road. Engineers reported that at high speed, wheel slip could happen without warning, causing the drivers to spin freely while the massive locomotive surged and bucked like a mechanical Bronco. The rigid wheelbase meant it couldn't negotiate standard railroad infrastructure.

After barely 7 years of troubled service, PRR scrapped number 6,100 in 1946. It proved that sometimes bigger isn't better. It's just more ways to fail spectacularly at 100 miles per hour

Southern Pacific AC 12 class 4-8-8-2 cab forward number 4294

Baldwin Locomotive Works delivered the last of Southern Pacific's 256 cab forward locomotives in March 1944. The AC12 number 4294 was a 4-8-8 D-S2 articulated giant weighing over 1 million pounds with tender design backwards or rather forwards to solve a deadly problem. The 39 tunnels and 40 m of snow sheds between Roseville and Sparks could esphixiate crews in conventional locomotives. SP's solution was radical flip the entire locomotive around.

The cab and firebox sat at the front with the boiler pointing backward toward the tender. This meant crews breathe clean air while the exhaust and heat stayed behind them. The AC12 generated 124,300 lb of tractive effort with a boiler operating at 250 lb per square inch. The massive 63 and 1/2 in drivers could handle both mountain grades and desert straightaways. What made these locomotives scary was their fatal flaw. Oil lines ran beneath the cab to feed the firebox. A leak could spray oil on the rails ahead of the driving wheels.

In 1941, a cab forward with leaking steam entered the tunnel at Santa Susanna Pass. Water on the rails caused wheel slip. The train slipped backward. A coupler broke and the crew was trapped in a tunnel filling with exhaust while oil ignited beneath the cab, killing everyone aboard the cab. Forward design saved countless lives in the Sierra Nevada, but it created new ways to die. When you're riding in the cab of a locomotive with 600 degree oil lines running beneath your feet and a million pounds of articulated machinery behind you, climbing grades where one oil leak means burning alive or slipping backward into oblivion.

You understand why crews called them backups. Number four, 2294 survives at the California State Railroad Museum. The only cab forward preserved from SP's fleet

Lima Locomotive Works 2-6-6-6 Allegheny H8 number one 61

Lima Locomotive Works built the Chesapeake and Ohio H8 Alagany in 1941, and it remains one of the most powerful steam locomotives ever constructed. At 778,000 lb for the engine alone and generating 110,200 lb of tractive effort, the 2-6-6- configuration meant six coupled driving axles providing unprecedented adhesion. The Allegheny wasn't designed for passenger service or light freight. It was built to haul coal, massive amounts of coal over the Allegheny Mountains on grades that would stall other locomotives.

The firebox measured 135 square ft, the largest ever applied to a locomotive. Boiler pressure hit 260 lb per square in, feeding four cylinders that could generate 7,498 indicated horsepower. These machines regularly hauled 5,000 ton coal trains over 2.0% grades unassisted. What made them terrifying was their assignment to Russell, Kentucky, where they tackled the new rivergrade 80 m of curves, grades, and tunnels through terrain that had defeated lesser railroads. The locomotives operated at the absolute limit of what steel could withstand. Crews reported that at full throttle, the entire 100 ton machine would physically lift and slam with each piston stroke. Track ballast flying like shrapnel.

The H8s earned a reputation for being track destroyers. Their massive weight and power literally hammered the rails into submission. Track maintenance crews followed these locomotives like battlefield medics, replacing bent rails and crushed ballast. Between 1941 and 1948, Lima built 60 Alaganis. Most were scrapped by 1956, victims of dieselization. Only two survive in museums. They represent the absolute pinnacle of steam power applied to the worst geography American railroading could offer. When CN O needed to move Appalachian coal to market, they didn't go around the mountains. They built locomotives that could punch straight through them.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse