The Union Pacific owns, maintains, and exhibits Big Boy, an example of the largest steam locomotive ever built. They house it in Cheyenne, WY, and send it out on good will tours which attract rail buffs like moths to a flame.
You may remember we traveled to see it in Nebraska and followed it to Cheyenne one year, when it had gone east and was headed home. This year it went to the west coast and once again we went to see it as it headed home across southern WY on its way to Cheyenne. The drive was 250 miles round trip on blue line highways and took most of a day.
We saw Big Boy streaming along the highway in a couple of places and then when it stopped for less than an hour in Kemmerer, WY. As always, that locomotive is a WOW.
To create these monsters (20 were built) the firm in upstate NY basically cobbled together two regular steam engines on one frame. It has two sets of drive wheels, two boilers, etc. We were told it normally operates with an engineer and fireman for each of the two power plants, meaning four guys in the oversized cab.
These giants were designed to pull long trains over the Rockies, which are both continental divide and backbone of North America. Kemmerer, for example, is at almost 7000 ft. elevation, that's 1.3 miles above sea level.
The big guys operated for 20 years, Big Boy's maker's plate give its inaugural year as 1941, so it worked until 1961, when it was replaced by the now-ubiquitous diesel-electric engines.
What impresses people today is that essentially no part of it is electronic, everything is hydraulic, mechanical, and analog. Engineers pull levers, turn knobs, and read gauges to keep it huffing and puffing. I suppose the lights in the cab are electric, as well as the headlight, and they probably have radio comms with the rest of the train crew, added later.
As I write this the other DrC hasn't yet posted her photos of the big guy in action and at rest. When she does, in the next day or so, they will be found here. Someone else's video here on YouTube.
