Larger Engines than Big Boys

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
61

Actually, if you want to delve into just sheer tractive power, the DM&IR Yellowstones had about 12,000lbs more TE that they could call upon than Big Boy, and both the WP and N&W 2-8-8-2’s could equal Big Boy’s TE, if not it’s horsepower at speed. But these locos were built for entirely different types of service. So if it’s sheer TE you’re interested in, Big Boy isn’t first. But for horsepower at speed (which I understand rarely happened in the territory that Big Boy was assigned to, at least at first), then Big Boy WAS the largest. But remember, UP’s transcontinental route across Wyoming and Utah also has the easiest crossing of the Rocky Mountains (a depression, not a pass) of all the transcontinentals. So Big Boy (and the UP Challengers, for that matter) was built for SPEED, not necessarily to climb steep grades. Something the Rio Grande found out during WWII when the War Board assigned them UP Challenger clones instead of letting them order more of their own more powerful L-105 4-6-6-4’s. The UP clones just couldn’t handle the Rio Grande grades, because they weren’t designed for them. So really, the whole BIGGEST steam loco controversy is somewhat moot. It’s how well the steamer worked on what it was assigned to do, that makes the point. And for the UP, Big Boy was the answer–at least temporarily.

62

I had that idea too [:)]

A DD90MAC, with 2 SD90’s, articulated at the joint with a 4-axle truck on the center.

63

The January 1973 issue of Model Railroader has 2 pictures on page 43 of a 6-12-12-4 in H0-scale. It looks like at stretched UP Big Boy - and is crafted entirely i 18 karat gold!
MR tells nothing about how it runs but it looks impressive.

64

I guess I just don’t dream ambitious enough, I was thinking DD60MAC based on two GP60MACs, with just two DD trucks and no articulation.

65

The 2-6-6-6 Allegheny weighed more than a Big Boy, it was also a tad more powerful. But the N&W’s Y6b 2-8-8-2’s were the most powerful.

66

I know nobody has posted here fer a while but on the subject check this guy out. Hes got some great stuff, as long as you arent to protopickickal [bow]

67

Jan '61 Trains has an article on Soviet steam power, which has a couple of interesting paragraphs about the 4-14-4 (also a drawing of it).

68

For the absolute largest you have to go for the legendary “Big Joe” built in Russia during the height of the cold war…

It’s a Little Known Fact that during the early 50’s the Russians decided to claim the “Worlds Largest Locomotive” title by building the atomic powered “Big Joe” a 4-12-12-4 + 4-12-12-4 monster engine built in super secret isolation at a secret military base located on the frozen Siberian tundra. Intended for the Moscow to Vladivostok Trans-Siberian run. The idea was to eliminate the need to stop for water or fuel so the train would run non-stop pulling trains up to ten-miles long.

The “Big Joe’s” were apparently quite Amazing sight to behold. Imagine the largest articulated locomotive you’ve ever seen. A 4-12-12-4 in a cab-forward designation. The forward cab was 2 levels and looked more like a jet plane than a steam loco. Now take a second section 4-12-12-4 articulated with a secondary crew cab dormitory at the rear. Now imagine, straddling between these two monsters, pivoted mid-way on the articulated portions like a large square steel boiler section of a Bayers-Garret, looking much like a huge transformer, the Reactor Core, whose nuclear heart was the boilers heating source. To feed these steam monsters 3 huge water tenders trailing behind.

Once completed, it was rolled out of the train shed onto the tracks only to realize that it was too heavy for any bridge, too big to go through any tunnels and far too long for any curves, and while they were figuring out what to next, the heat from the nuclear reactor melted the permafrost under the engine, where upon it crashed thru the rails, the crews leaping from the two-story control cab, sinking under its own ocean liner weight, the heat of its atomic heart burning thru the icy soil to the center of the Earth, never to be seen again…

All records were destroyed to prevent word of this huge embarrassment from reaching Western ears, the base was converted to a reindeer farm, the crews and builder

69

VSmith: Oh, God, here we go again! can anyone here top that one? I mean, for sheer hilarity?

70

And I always thought my idea for an SD30 was a bit outlandish!! I guess I’d have to enter it in the Subtle Spoofs contest section — right beside the left-handed Shay I once saw (or would that be a yahS?).

71

Here’s are some real monsters!! [:o] Model one of these… they’ll be an interesting addition to any layout (if you have a table long enough)

Erie’s “multiplex” 2-4-6-8-10-12 … again, how many wheels?
[image]http://sbiii.com/bwrkapix/24681012.jpg[/image]

PRR’s Zoo Class 4-14-6
[image]http://sbiii.com/bwrkapix/prrdoplg.jpg[/image]

The legendary DDP45!
[image]http://home.att.net/~iii1/mrrpix/ddp45ho1.jpg[/image]

… Up has always been the road for large engines… The mythical DDDDP45
[image]http://sbiii.com/mrrpix/ddddp45.jpg[/image]

Speaking about large engines… ATFS’s TDP-45
[image]http://sbiii.com/mrrpix/tdp-45.jpg[/image]

72

cefinkjr

“right beside the left-handed Shay I once saw (or would that be a yahS?)”

Don’t laugh, this one was for real. There was a 2 cylinder “yahs” built for a small mexican narrow gauge railway, back before shays even had cabs on them. I can’t remember when it was actually built but I believe it had to do with clearances on one of the lines it was assigned to. There was a picture of the prototype in an old Model Railroader from around 1968, with a letter from Roy Keeley to the effect that it was one of a couple ever built with the cylinders on the “wrong” side. I knew this gentleman personally while he was living in Mobile, Al. and shays were by far his favorite loco. He got a big kick out of this “yahs”. I think he had a pic of every shay made by the original company.

73

It’s a shame nobody makes four-axle streerable truck sideframes. [:)]