I know UP has one or two Challengers running out of Wyoming, but I was wondering if there is an active running Big Boy somewhere?
None, all survivors are inactive and on display and likely never will be restored again to active use. It simply would cost too much (est $2M last time some one considered it, 10 years ago), today the boiler would likely need to be replaced , theres virtually no where left equipped to handle a loco of its size anymore.
PS only ONE Challenger, #3985, is still active, the other UP active steam loco is 4-8-4 #844.
John,
I don’t know where you are located in the US. If you want to see a Big Boy on display, there’s one at Steamtown in Scranton, PA and one in Omaha, Nebraska. Here’s a cool link about movin’ UP #4023 that’s definitely worth a see:
http://www.uphs.org/4023move.html
Tom
Go to steamlocomotive.com. Tells you all you need.
This is a thread with a link to a Challenger on the move;
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=56525
There is also a Big Boy on display at the museum of transportation in St. Louis, MO (near Kirkwood). As for one running again, this has been debated here many times before, but I would say for a number of reasons (size, cost, weight, wear and tear on curved track, etc.) that we have seen our last running Big Boy.
Ron
There is also a Big Boy (#4017) on display at the Wisconsin Railway Museum in Green Bay.
Didn’t the UP do their best to sabotage these things so they weren’t operable? This reminds me of the BS that Age of Steam fell for with that proposed movie. They rolled the thing and that was about it.
Why wouldn’t U.P want one of them restored to working order? Because they didn’t do it first?
No, you are thinking of the NS. They took two working steam locomotives, took them out of service, and destroyed critical parts. If there was any place a Big Boy could run practically, the UP would restore one.
Last time I was in Cheyenne there was one fenced in a park east of downtown. I have slides of it if anyone wants to know the road number.
I remember the reason I thought that. The UP cut the piston rods of the one that went to Dallas. I have heard of railroads “sabotaging” locomotives beyond being operable before donating them to various organizations.
all i have seen is display.
A lot of roads cut piston rods to enable dead locomotives to be moved easily in train. Cutting them required less time and effort than removing the connecting rod. So sabotage may not have been the motive at all. At any rate, making a new piston rod is a fairly simple job, so cutting it would not prevent a loco from being returned to service.
All the best,
Mark.
The BigBoy on display in Omaha, NE had it’s connecting rods cut so that it was easily moved from storage to it’s final resting place. I to have heard that it was common practice to cut the rods.
But accusing the Union Pacific of everything from kicking puppies to starting World War 3 is more fun.
UP has ONE challenger (3985) and ONE 4-8-4 (844). Both are based in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Any additional Union Pacific 4-8-4s, challengers, big boys or other assorted UP steam that hasn’t been scraped is pretty much on display in a park or at a museum.
It is a hugh ru***o see either 844 or 3985 run by. I have had the opportunity to photograph both of them from time to time as they were steaming across Nebraska at speed. Usually they will use one of the two to pull a passenger special of some kind and them use it in revenue freight service on the way back home. It really looks wierd to see a steam giant from the 1940s on the point of a train of modern covered hoppers, gigantic box cars, and 85 foot auto racks. Lots of fun! Now that I live in Missouri I don’t get the opportunity to see and photograph steam very often.
Knock the big yellow and grey all you want. Nobody else in this day and age has or does provides us with such a spectacular steam show!
Cheers
$4.5 million to make the one in Steam town run. That was the GUESS when I was there last year. the big problem is that no RR want that equipment running. NS Killed the “J” and the Y6a so they could never run again.
ok, this has sparked my curiosity, why would a railroad UP, NS or any other go out of their way to ‘kill’ a steam loco? Is it because they have absorbed so much soot into their bodies over time? Seriously why wouldn’t they want a historical society or museum to have an operational steam loco?
oh and by the way their are still some small operational steam locos in NJ at Allaire state Park. A 1-2 mile novelty ride.
Dan
I wasn’t trying to say anything bad about the UP. I am not one of these hobbyists that dislikes any particular railroad “just because”. I have heard that in the past that particular railroads would disable equipment for various reasons before donating it to different organizations.