UP Big Boy the largest 4-8-8-4 steam engine in the world

taliovelez

taliovelez

NYP to WUS
 

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Let me guess... You like trains? (y)

Many YouTube fans are railroad fans. I have a good camera capable of making MP4 videos, and I live 100 yards away from a major east-west rail route in California... I've been considering pondering going out to the Tehachapi Loop Overlook, which is about 25 miles east of Edison on CA-58, setting my camera on my tripod, and start filming. If enough people like my work, there's gold in them thar videos!

tehachapi-loop.png
 

I was a yard attendant for N de M then, relocated to America, received my citizenship and qualified to be a brakeman then hogger for Penn-Central, Conrail and AMTRAK all in the Northeast and Atlantic Regions. Down here in South Florida a railfan (obviously with connections to Brightline) has exclusive rights to follow their trains with his drones. He has exclusive rights to anywhere on their property. They even allow him to attach his GoPros to the sides of the trains but only in their maintenance and terminal areas. When I get a chance I'll dig up his account for you. Do you listen to the various railroad live streams on the internet? Keep in touch.
 
What a size Big Boy is, here in the UK I doubt it's weight would be tolerated by our rail network. We cannot compete with Big Boy's size but we do have the claim to the world's fastest ever steam engine:

On 3 July 1938, Locomotive Mallard, claimed the world speed record for steam locomotives at 126 mph during a trial of a new, quick-acting brake, known as the Westinghouse QSA brake. The speed was achieved at Stoke Bank, south of Grantham. Mallard hauled a seven-coach train, including a dynamometer car which housed apparatus to record the speed. The speed it recorded exceeded the previous record speed of 124.5 mph set in Germany in 1936 by DRG Class 05 No. 002.

Number_4468_Mallard_in_York.jpgMallard_Record_Plate_01.jpg
 
The Big Boy certainly earned it's place in steam era history. I'm Great Northern fan, but of the era that just followed steam until Amtrak took over. I do remember steam engines. I could hear them spinning their wheels in a freight yard a mile from my house. My father worked at Electro Motive in Chicago where they built most of the diesel engines that pushed steam out of the picture. I rode the Great Northern from Chicago to Western Montana when I left home at 17.

I'm an N scaler. I have 2 GN passenger sets, 1 UP set, 1 Northern Pacific set, and 1 Santa Fe, plus assorted freight equipment. Been collecting the stuff for years, and no layout to run them on.
 
In my entire career I never hogged Southwest of Enola Yard during the CR era. Running GP30's from Oak Island at 50 mph is no fun. GG1 powered freights passing by at 60 mph and passengers cooking at 75 mph. Always wished my OI/EN could head to Chicago with it's massive passenger terminal and staging yard for all the different railroads. On a couple of Youtube videos I noticed a large number of private varnish on the layup tracks. I will say those were real trains now the trains especially Americas plastic and aluminum AMTRAK land jets are giving the airlines serious midtown to midtown competition
 
JustDave said:
The Big Boy certainly earned it's place in steam era history. I'm Great Northern fan, but of the era that just followed steam until Amtrak took over. I do remember steam engines. I could hear them spinning their wheels in a freight yard a mile from my house. My father worked at Electro Motive in Chicago where they built most of the diesel engines that pushed steam out of the picture. I rode the Great Northern from Chicago to Western Montana when I left home at 17.

I'm an N scaler. I have 2 GN passenger sets, 1 UP set, 1 Northern Pacific set, and 1 Santa Fe, plus assorted freight equipment. Been collecting the stuff for years, and no layout to run them on.
Click to expand...

Every try those folding 4' by 8' plyboard bases? You could construct an awesome layout in N gauge.
 
taliovelez said:
Every try those folding 4' by 8' plyboard bases? You could construct an awesome layout in N gauge.
Click to expand...
What sold me on N scale was a 4 X 6 layout with a folding and twisted dog bone track plan with sweeping curves built by my ex's uncle. Although I always imagined something even bigger. I just don't see it happening anymore, but I could make room for a 4 X 8. You can squeeze in a lot with N scale. Imagine an HO that measures 8 X 16 and you get the idea.
 
Axel Slingerland said:
Let me guess... You like trains? (y)

Many YouTube fans are railroad fans. I have a good camera capable of making MP4 videos, and I live 100 yards away from a major east-west rail route in California... I've been considering pondering going out to the Tehachapi Loop Overlook, which is about 25 miles east of Edison on CA-58, setting my camera on my tripod, and start filming. If enough people like my work, there's gold in them thar videos!

tehachapi-loop.png
Click to expand...
Here is the Brightline mascot.

The Roaming Railfan
 
JustDave said:
What sold me on N scale was a 4 X 6 layout with a folding and twisted dog bone track plan with sweeping curves built by my ex's uncle. Although I always imagined something even bigger. I just don't see it happening anymore, but I could make room for a 4 X 8. You can squeeze in a lot with N scale. Imagine an HO that measures 8 X 16 and you get the idea.
Click to expand...

When UP worked Northern Mexico my uncle constructed a massive H.O. scale layout using UP rolling stock layout for his son, my cousin. He had to buy all this hobby equipment in El-Paso and it was not cheap. Most of the rolling stock he had to scratchbuild. My cousin could care less about it. I drooled but was warned not to even look at it My uncle had money so my cousin never had to work. My mom, dad and my younger brother worked whenever and wherever we could. One day we never saw my cousin again and I became what my uncle dreamed what he wanted to see his son my cousin to be. Life an be cruel but it is what you make of it.
 
My Dad had an HO layout that was huge in 3 rooms of our 4 room basement. I spent many hours down there with him, "helping" him build it. Meaning I played with the trains and generally got in his way. But we had fun. It was almost a given that any time he was home we would either be down there or on the front porch playing guitar.
 
I was actually proud of that. Almost every kid I knew kept their distance from their Dads. But my Dad was pretty cool. He raised me to be a blues rock guitarist, and he wasn't even of the 60's hippie generation. He took me to one of the seven concerts this album was recorded at in NYC...

 
My dad thought model trains were foolish, I did scramble a few things together to make a pitiful layout when I was in high school. It qualified as possibly the poorest layout ever built. I had friends who had support, both encouraging and financial from their parents, who had nice layouts, not like your cousins, but enviable.
 

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