Not really a rail fan, but...

[Lex Luthier]

I just got to view the last working example of the largest, most powerful steam-powered locomotives ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxgPrM9HO98

I'm taking my 4-year-old grandson and 10-year-old granddaughter to watch it depart Saint Paul in the morning.
Totally inspiring. The whistle blast bounced across the Mississippi bluffs like Gabriel's horn. It shook my bones!

Ever seen a land-bound machine that weighs 1.3 million pounds move under its own power?

'Merica. Hell, Yeah.

Another, perhaps more inspiring fact is that this machine was ready for restoration due to being oiled monthly by a guy who worked on it during it's last decade of duty in the '50s. He oiled the running gear regularly as a volunteer at a southern CA rail museum from 1961 until 2014.

[ralph]

I just got to view the last working example of the largest, most powerful steam-powered locomotives ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxgPrM9HO98

I'm taking my 4-year-old grandson and 10-year-old granddaughter to watch it depart Saint Paul in the morning.
Totally inspiring. The whistle blast bounced across the Mississippi bluffs like Gabriel's horn. It shook my bones!

Ever seen a land-bound machine that weighs 1.3 million pounds move under its own power?

'Merica. Hell, Yeah.

Another, perhaps more inspiring fact is that this machine was ready for restoration due to being oiled monthly by a guy who worked on it during it's last decade of duty in the '50s. He oiled the running gear regularly as a volunteer at a southern CA rail museum from 1961 until 2014.

I've been watching the restoration of this for the last few years.. I would love to ride in the cab, that I think, would be one hell of a thrill ride. I guess there were only 25 of these things built during WWII, 7 are left on static display and only one, 4014 is operational, the rest were scrapped when the railroad went to Diesel/Electric engines.. Googling the specs on this thing, and they are truly stunning. This engine is from a different era, when the railroads employed thousands of boilermakers, pipefitters, welders, machinists, in addition to fireman, engineers, conductors, and the gangs of men who laid and repaired the track. The bigger railroads operated their own foundrys to make parts, and some of the railroads designed and built their own engines.What's really neat is, this engine was restored at UP's steam shop, which has about 10-12 guys total, sure, they sent alot of stuff out, but these guys tore this whole thing down to the frame themselves, and went through every part, and reassembled it. All this took 5 years, this was a stunning effort, and the results speak for themselves.. Something to think about, how many people are left in the world that know how to operate a beast like this? If I had to guess you could probably count them on one hand..The crews that operated these things were a special club of their own.. They were running the biggest steam engine ever made..

[Snapshot]

4014 in the shop at Cheyenne 2017-03-10:

[ralph]

4014 in the shop at Cheyenne 2017-03-10:

Nothing on there is little, or light.. Whoever did the riveting when it was built did a nice job, Riveting plate steel together to make a boiler, or say a storage tank is a lost art today..I was working in a refinery in the early 00's when they were taking down a storage tank in the tank farm that had just started leaking a few months prior, that was put together with rivets..it was built on site in 1915, and it was the last all riveted storage tank in the refinery, It was kinda sad to see it go..

[Stephanie B]

I just got to view the last working example of the largest, most powerful steam-powered locomotives ever made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxgPrM9HO98

I'm taking my 4-year-old grandson and 10-year-old granddaughter to watch it depart Saint Paul in the morning.
Totally inspiring. The whistle blast bounced across the Mississippi bluffs like Gabriel's horn. It shook my bones!

Ever seen a land-bound machine that weighs 1.3 million pounds move under its own power?

'Merica. Hell, Yeah.

Another, perhaps more inspiring fact is that this machine was ready for restoration due to being oiled monthly by a guy who worked on it during it's last decade of duty in the '50s. He oiled the running gear regularly as a volunteer at a southern CA rail museum from 1961 until 2014.

I am jealous as all getout. I bought a "hand on the throttle" at Essex Valley RR nine years ago. I can't imagine the thrill of driving one of those.

[Stephanie B]

I've been watching the restoration of this for the last few years.. I would love to ride in the cab, that I think, would be one hell of a thrill ride. I guess there were only 25 of these things built during WWII, 7 are left on static display and only one, 4014 is operational, the rest were scrapped when the railroad went to Diesel/Electric engines.. Googling the specs on this thing, and they are truly stunning. This engine is from a different era, when the railroads employed thousands of boilermakers, pipefitters, welders, machinists, in addition to fireman, engineers, conductors, and the gangs of men who laid and repaired the track. The bigger railroads operated their own foundrys to make parts, and some of the railroads designed and built their own engines.What's really neat is, this engine was restored at UP's steam shop, which has about 10-12 guys total, sure, they sent alot of stuff out, but these guys tore this whole thing down to the frame themselves, and went through every part, and reassembled it. All this took 5 years, this was a stunning effort, and the results speak for themselves.. Something to think about, how many people are left in the world that know how to operate a beast like this? If I had to guess you could probably count them on one hand..The crews that operated these things were a special club of their own.. They were running the biggest steam engine ever made..

I think they did it in a little over three years. The UP Steam Shop was working on getting 844 back on the road before they turned to a major effort on 4014. If you were watching their "Big Boy Updates" on YuTube, it sure seemed as though they cut it almighty fine in getting her out of the shop for the Golden Spike Sesquicentennial.

Biggest steam locomotive, yes. Biggest steam engine, no. Naval steam turbines made a Big Boy look trivial.

[ralph]

I think they did it in a little over three years. The UP Steam Shop was working on getting 844 back on the road before they turned to a major effort on 4014. If you were watching their "Big Boy Updates" on YuTube, it sure seemed as though they cut it almighty fine in getting her out of the shop for the Golden Spike Sesquicentennial.

Biggest steam locomotive, yes. Biggest steam engine, no. Naval steam turbines made a Big Boy look trivial.

Ah, I stand corrected..
I had been watching the updates, and yeah, they sliced it pretty fine getting it out of the shop in time. Still, that was an awful big job to take that thing down to the frame, and rebuild/reassemble it, convert the firebox to run on oil instead of coal, (can you imagine how much the EPA, and all the enviro weenies would bitch if it still ran on coal) pretty sure they had to retube the boiler, (in fact I'd bet on it) and that's a job in itself. Get it up and running, from what I've seen, read, with few, if any problems.. That just shows how skilled those guys are.. I would love a ride in the cab..

[JAD]

Here’s a big fan of the big boy next to the unit that’s in Frisco, 4018. We visited in 2015; I’m not sure how she’s doing now.

[Stephanie B]

Ah, I stand corrected..
I had been watching the updates, and yeah, they sliced it pretty fine getting it out of the shop in time. Still, that was an awful big job to take that thing down to the frame, and rebuild/reassemble it, convert the firebox to run on oil instead of coal, (can you imagine how much the EPA, and all the enviro weenies would bitch if it still ran on coal) pretty sure they had to retube the boiler, (in fact I'd bet on it) and that's a job in itself. Get it up and running, from what I've seen, read, with few, if any problems.. That just shows how skilled those guys are.. I would love a ride in the cab..

Me, too. The updates were fascinating as to the amount of detail they revealed. I did not know that the ends of the staybolts in the firebox all had little metal shields to keep the bolts from being eroded by cinders.

Essex Valley still runs on coal.