Last of the Giants--Union Pacific Railroad

for more than a century the haunting voice of the iron horse echoed across the land from the eastern seaboard over the seemingly endless Plains and through the western mountains steam locomotives fused a sprawling landmass into a solid nation there's was a call to dreamers of every age lefting them from humdrum schoolroom our office to fancied adventures on the high iron lucky the boy who one day could say he had seen them in action or by 1960 the age of steam had virtually ended and the thrill of seeing a mammoth engine at work was to be only a happy memory of childhood of all the locomotives in the long history of the rails one of the greatest was called big boy a name by which the world knew an engine that closed a memorable era in western railroading it was the last of the Giants built as machines to produce transportation steam locomotives seldom were endowed with grace of line and then never at the sacrifice of efficiency and power or speed for those who ran them and serviced them the 25 engines of our 4,000 class climaxed American steam freight locomotive design so big boy was a railroad man's everyday working too but it had romantic aspects too in the dreams of those grown-up units who as bankers or teachers or house painters secretly yearn to trade places with the engineer in his cab the site of big boy fighting the grades of Wyoming Sherman Hill was to these aficionados a picture more treasured than any in the world's galleries the shattering sounds from it stacks on the moan of its chime whistle more stirring than any concert hall melody rugged and powerful it was on call around the clock around the calendar to ride a trail of Steel as it drew bales and boxes and car loads of the world's goods from east to west to east again although its evolution began a century of the quarter before the music of this machine ever rang through Utah's Weber Canyon or drummed across the Rocky Mountain plateaus big boys true ancestors were more recent locomotives like Big Boy were products of ruling schedules versus little engines Hey when business surged ahead in the West around the turn of the century railroads serving that territory found they needed more power for increasingly longer trains the power problem raised by lengthening a train had long been met by adding another locomotive double heading save time on urgent Freight but it also meant investment in extra locomotives expensive machines whose periods of usefulness were subject to the rise and fall of business nevertheless it was a grand sight to see a pair of husky little haulers leaving town to the tune of out of beat exhaust Oh with this museum piece with its six churning driving wheels was new in 1890 it was considered a Samson of the rails but that was not enough even then and soon six drivers grew to eight then eight became ten as more feet were added to the Iron Horse larger cylinders were needed to power them more steam was needed to work the cylinders and in this Jack built house on wheels a larger boiler to supply the steam more power brought more weight which though it aided traction by pressing the drivers to the rail required more wheels to distributed the longer the locomotive grew the more it became like a centipede with a stiff neck it had difficulty following tracks that wound with rivers and mountains size also was limited by bridges and tunnels designed for the smaller locomotives and cars that had been adequate in the early days the same problem came upon European railroads one answer to the power in size spiral was found by a Frenchman Anatole mal a far from being a comic character ballet was a brilliant engineer in 1889 he built a flexible locomotive he made two short engine units then joined their frames with a hinge pin an extra pair of cylinders was added to drive the rear unit a large boiler completed the design voila the railroad world had here a new and useful piece of equipment it bent in the middle to take curves freely being hinged or articulated engines could be made longer with more wheels to distribute the weight that was the partner of power the first Mally used in America one which railroaders affectionately called old Maude ran on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Virginian and Erie railroads went Nalle one better and built locomotives with three engine units powerful brutes but steam hungry and hard to maintain malee engines like old Maude also were of the economical compound type they used the steam twice it came from the boiler first to the rear set of cylinders at high pressure then as it expanded it passed at lower pressure into a second and larger set before exhausting through the smokestack in 1918 we put a number of Mally's to work on heavy grades true to type with bulging front cylinders these engines did a good job of pulling but they were slow movers and hard on track the moving parts of the front units were so large and heavy that at higher speeds the track suffered continuous and devastating hammering like most Western railroads our lines stretch over long distances and speed is essential to maintain good service to get both the power and speed we needed we returned in the mid-20s to the rigid frame engine the result was the 9000 series a locomotive of singular design with 12 coupled driving wheels it was the largest non articulated engine ever built it ran twice as fast as the Mally's yet used less fuel the 9000 served well on the plains where rails curved gently but in mountain country were winding tracks resistant stiff-legged engines their efficiency and power were impaired so as early as 1936 using roller bearings and better steels we revived the articulated type locomotive the result was the famous Challenger unlike the Maui's the challengers and their leaders somewhat refined cousins the 3900 class used only high-pressure steam in both sets of equal sized cylinders they seemed the final answer to the railroaders dream but with the threat of world war two still more was asked of the railroads a greater hauling capacity was needed and even these locomotives were found wanting big boy was born of necessity now the stretching of the locomotive had reached its maximum where the challengers and 39 hundreds had two sets of six drivers big boy had two groups of eight like its forerunners it had four wheel trucks under the front cylinders to lead it through the curves and under the cab to support the huge firebox whether it was booming along at 80 you're drifting easy big boy radiated majesty massive and compact a solid workhorse yet limber as a Trotter magnificence was paired with performance the four thousands were the largest and heaviest of their type ever built 132 feet long a million and a quarter pounds in weight every inch of big boy had the look of irresistible force enough in fact to pull a loaded five and a half mile long train on level track bigboy also furnished power to check the hurtling tons behind it a common sight on trains descending Sherman Hill was a swirl of smoke streaming from every wheel as the brakes were applied energized by compressed air from the locomotive there was a family resemblance about Big Boi and the 3900 heavy jaw load with bulky cylinders each had a bright eye low on a double chin of air compresses the Bell was a four lock the pilot like a steel beard a 3900 carried our familiar shield in the center of its space like smoke box from big boy below the headlight a distinguishing feature of this type of articulated locomotive was the reluctant manner in which the long rigid boiler followed the front free swinging engine unit around a curve Malley's first little double-jointed locomotive have come a long way in fact all locomotives and long before disproved early 19th century scholars who had said smooth driving wheels on smooth rails would spin futile ly they hadn't considered adhesion supplied by the engines weight although nearly 3/4 of big boys tonnage was on it's 68 inch drivers attractive power sometimes overcame even this sport four cylinders each larger than a 40 gallon oil drum powered the 16 drivers steam at 300 pounds pressure was distributed to the cylinders by valves timed with a mechanical device that created a fascinating counterpoint in motion the engineer controlled this complicated valve mechanism and could change the direction of travel with an auxiliary machine the reverse gear life in big boy began in the firebox a high-efficiency furnace so large that a human fireman could hardly shovel enough coal into it to make steam for the whistle a mechanical Stoker claude fuel from the tender passed it by an Archimedes screw to the firebox then sewed it across the fire within the steel boiler water circulated around more than a mile of tubes and flutes that carried a red-hot hurricane to generate and superheat the steam with big boys size two stacks were needed hoods to deflect the smoke confirm it a clear view from the cab often were used by the engineer most of a steam locomotives life was spent in or near its own special den the Roundhouse though sturdy and reliable even big boy often needed attention and service better than most engines its availability for pulling trains still was relatively low the Roundhouse rights began at the end of the run when the fire was dumped and the grates cleaned and cooled a never-ending job was that of removing ashes cleared from big boys garage sized firebox good maintenance required frequent washing to flush away the Griffon grease that always gathered on a steam engine the locomotive first was pushed through a shower then finished by hand after a round of inspection that included a search for leaking steam connections big boy was ready for the Roundhouse once inside the engine might be there only a few hours while the boiler was emptied and washed but if heavy repairs were needed it went to the back shop or perhaps a month where first it was disassembled with the aid of a heavy duty crane one task was fitting big boy with new shoes steel tyres for its drivers a periodic precision job for back shop machinist with special skills and tools after being machined the tire was ready for mounting it had been bored about an eighth of an inch smaller than the diameter of the wheel centered in a spectacular operation it was made to fit gas flames heated and expanded the tire until it was larger than the wheel after the tyre was driven into place and before it cooled and shrank to grip the wheel securely it was gaged for correct position in another part of the shop the pipe fitters would be busy with big boys boiler tubes and flus as well as another mile of piping that made up the super heater often had to be repaired or replaced there were very few small parts on a four thousand the tools were equally large and heavy and the work was hard it was a rare breed who maintained these giants like the foreman who retired after spending his entire working life in a round house then returned to visit nearly every day like the machinist who set valves on big boys all day then spent much of the evening building a model railroad at home - ready a locomotive for the road once the fire had been rekindled and the boiler was full of steam all that remained to be done was to add fuel and water into the elephantine tender were tumbled 28 tons of coal enough to heat the average house for many seasons for the thirsty boiler the 86 ton tender also carried 25,000 gallons of water more than enough for a good sized home swimming pool with a heavy train a 4,000 often went through most of its food and drink within the first half of a 57 mile trip over Sherman Hill it took many people many hours to return Big Boy to the job of moving Freight over the main line standing docile as the running orders were read only the quick breathing fire the droning generator in the clanking wheezing air pumps we spoke its latent power but once the engineer on his hero throne had cracked the throttle to start the tons of rowing it took some doing to hold Big Boi back bigboy was a king of the rails who came to life in a fusion of scheme and steel he proclaimed his presence with a rhythmic cop and a throaty cry belching smoke and trailing steam he pounded through his domain with a flashing and spinning of rods and wheels his was an awesome majesty but he was the last of his line to be toppled by new monarchs of the track in the 18 years that the big boys reigned they ran up a total of nearly 26 million miles hauling billions of tons of freight as prime movers along our wartime lifeline later carrying the goods of peace and a rising economy during his final years bigboy made his last stand on a short but busy section of our main line tough demanding Sherman Hill and then it was only during the annual fall rush a few weeks a year even as the last wisps of steam were vanishing from railroading yesterday big boys successors were ushering in a speed and space hungry era he gave way as Electronics jet power and the atom were put to work on the iron trail so Big Boi marked the end of big steam railroading in the West he was not abandoned because he failed at what he was designed to do but because a more efficient breed of iron horse appeared in the evolution of railroad locomotives the vital link between East and West that was forged with steam engines is made even stronger today with modern motive power the day has no end for the railroad but whatever locomotive progress shall put at the head of tomorrow's train the rumble and roar of big boy will seem still to echo from a high country of southern wild

Channel: Geo. Willeman

Views: 385,090

Rating: 4.9014373 out of 5

Keywords: railroad, Big Boy, trains, locomotive, Union Pacific, Union Pacific Railroad (Organization), Train

Id: M4BWsYbJROQ

Length: 22min 56sec (1376 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 27 2013