Saturday 17 May, 2014
The weekend is here and the city is celebrating "Depot Days & Union Pacific Steam Engine Open House. ". It's an annual event where they celebrate the history of the steam locomotive. Cheyenne is the hub for virtually all Union Pacific trains and has the facilities to repair and restore all of them. They are going to restore the largest steam engine ever built and put it in their museum. The train is on display for the general public to enjoy before restoration begins.The maintenance buildings are open for tours. There are several train engines in each of the two buildings. One of them holds "Big Boy", train No. 4014, for restoring.
Big Boy is the popular name of the American Locomotive Company 4000-class 4-8-8-4 articulated, coal-fired, steam locomotives manufactured between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad until 1959. The Big Boy fleet totaled twenty five locomotives that were used primarily in the Wyoming Division to haul freight over the Wasatch range between Green River, Wyoming and Ogden, Utah.
The Big Boy locomotives were the only locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement, consisting of a four-wheel leading truck for stability entering curves, two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel trailing truck to support the large firebox.
According to Ed Dickens Jr., Union Pacific's senior manager of heritage operations, the legendary name was coined by an unknown worker who scrawled "Big Boy" in chalk on the front of one of the engines as it was being built. It became the nickname thereafter.
Notice that they are much bigger the closer you get
Schematic of front end
Mock up of the Large wheels
Huge train
Open end of boiler
Water Carrier--25,500 gals
Another display was of a car driven by teenagers crossing a familiar track. They apparently weren't paying attention (high maybe). they were lucky to be alive. speed: 20mph
.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Hope you like our blog, please leave a comment.