I know. After being a forum member all this time and a model railroader many years longer I should know the answer to this, but what was the UP Challenger’s primary use?. Was it meant to be a freight hauler or a passenger loco or both?.
Thanks for any input, and please forgive my ignorance.
Tracklayer
It was used primarily for freight service but was occassionaly used for passenger service in the California and Oregon mountains. If you go to www.upsteam.com there is some good info about #3985 which is still in service. I saw it a couple of years ago and it is very impressive. My father-in-law was an engineer for the UP for 40 years and actually fired on one of them in he early 50s.
According to Steve Lee, the manager of the UP steam excursion program, Challengers were developed to work in conjunction with Big Boys. A Big Boy would pull a freight train over the mountains, and the Challenger would then take it across the prairie.
The only surviving Challenger is used today for passenger excursions.
IIRC, the Challengers predate the Big Boy. The Big Boy was built around or just before WWII and basically ran the mainline territory over Sherman Hill in Wyoming. There were only 25 of them, and there were over 100 Challengers. The Challengers roamed over more of the system and some were even painted in the ‘Greyhound’ paint scheme and used on passenger trains(Oregon Division).
Both were very impressive engines!
Jim Bernier
UP owned 105 Challengers only 40 of which were delivered before World War Two. Those 40 were used almost exclusively in freight service through the Wasatch - Ogden to Green River - until the 1941 delivery of the Big Boys supplemented by the 65 units delivered during World War Two allowed the Onion Specific to utilized them in service on some of their other districts most notably, I guess, through the Blues and over Cajon and across the desert between L.A. and Ogden - at least that is where most of the published photographs, as I recall, appear to have been taken. Many of these published photographs of the Union Pacific Challengers are of units pulling passenger trains; one of the more frequently published of these photographs is of a helper on the drawbar of an A-B-A set of diesels on the point of an eastbound Streamliner ascending Cajon.
The Big Boys, like the Challengers, were designed for, and spent their early years, lugging freight over the Wasatch and did not venture far from that venue, if ever, until the flood of diesels in the late '40s - early '50s bumped them into freight service over Sherman Hill.
If all the prior posts about primarly being desigined as a freight loco, then why was it designated “Challenger” after the passenger train of the same name? It seemes unlikely that was just a coincidence.
I always figured it was designed for passenger service on that train and then they discovered it was a great dual purpose loco. In that scenario just by sheer numbers looking back they look like a freighter.???
I guess I am saying, I wonder if there is a difference in their intended/designed use and their historical statistical primary use.
Actually there are two Challengers preserved. Besides the famous 3985 that UP runs on the steam program, there is also 3977 preserved at Cody Park in North Platte, NE… I believe that she is currently painted in grey with smoke deflectors.
Eric
The train is named for probably the same reason “Challenger” “Columbia”, “Explorer” are shuttles. Someone decided it was a neat name for a train. Then, when the the Chellenging Rockies dared a bigger freight train to cross, the aptly named Challenger stepped up.
Could be wrong.
Does 3977 run though? 3985 I believe is the only Challenger to still actively run. They savaged many parts from the bigboy that sit in a park in Cheyenne to keep 3985 in running condition. I
Texas–
I could be off base, but I’ve heard that the design was originally intended as a fast dual-service loco to ‘Challenge’ the UP gradients in Wyoming and Utah. I know that the earliest ones certainly didn’t LOOK like a passenger locomotive–at least not like the later ones–there seems to be quite a cosmetic difference (frankly, I like the looks of the earlier ones better, but that’s just me).
Also, it seems that the UP Challengers were about the lightest of all of the 4-6-6-4 locos ever built as far as Tractive Effort. I know that both the Alco Z-series for NP, GN and SP&S, and the Baldwins built for Rio Grande and Western Maryland had more starting TE than the UP 97,000 lbs. The Rio Grande models were 105,000 lbs TE and I think the Z-series from Alco had close to 106,000 lbs TE. I don’t know about the ones built for Western Pacific, but I do know that when Rio Grande got their L-97 3800 UP clones during WWII (they wanted more L-105’s, but the War Board had frozen the design), they got rid of them as fast as they could after the war, because the 3800’s just couldn’t hack the Rio Grande’s profile.
But those UP Challengers sure ended up all OVER the UP system, from Portland to LA, so they must have been really successful as an all-purpose articulated.&nb
like always an engine gets designed for a purpose. Challengers/Big Boy had bigger wheels than like the N&W Y6B’s, meant for speed to get across the looong prairies. Y6b was meant for power slowly tugging up heavy grades and they were double headed and pushered on single trains a lot.
Being the bigger engine the Big Boys would get used on the heaviest grade areas leaving the challengers free to other tasks.
I have heard when the big boy gets steaming right the coal stoker is always running and the coal never gets a chance to land on the bed, it gets burned right out. This is why you just never may see a Big Boy run again, it is such a coal soaker even just sitting.
Thanks for your input guys. I very much appreciate it. I own a number of railroad books but none with much info in them about the Challenger. Like I said in the beginning, I was never 100% clear on its exact purpose.
Thanks again.
Tracklayer
I don’t know, I always thought it was named because the Wasatch was the operating department’s biggest Challenge.
Found on the web by a quick google - not necessarily the true story, but sounds credible enough:
http://www.steamlocomotive.com/challenger/
Stein
MR did an expose on the Challenger several years ago with one of the best centerfolds I have ever seen (Yes my age is showing). It was an excellent article, which expalined everything. I wonder if Bergie could dig it up or provide us with the date it was published?
Fergie
Or one could key in http://index.mrmag.com/ and go look for oneself.
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=S&cmdtext=Challenger&MAG=MR
Smile,
Stein
Didn’t know I could do that… Thank You!
On that note I believe it was the January 95 edition.
Fergie
Interesting, but I am still wonder where all our UP experts are and/or why they aren’t chimming in here.
Edit - the following story has since proved to be not totally correct, but I didn’t want to just delete it or change it an make the following posts look strange. (see following posts).
The site above does have one small error. It says the GNs two Challengers were from the SP&S which is opposite. Since the NP loved them so much the GN bought 2 brand new. For some reason they hated them from the start and sent them to the SP&S at the first opportunity. They were the newest “big steam” locomotives the SP&S had ever recieved from her parents. The SP&S was so impressed they became avid Alco fans. One can see the effect these two 2nd hand Challengers had on the SP&S by looking at their diesel roster.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/up_modelers/ is the place to get the definative answer. I’m a UP buff, and always thought it was primarily a passenger loco. Athern reproduces the 40’ “Challenger” express boxcars for LCL freight at the head end of a passenger train. I’ll have to dig through some books, but there was a whole article about the "“Challenger” passenger trains. My [2c] and 1/2!!
TZ,
That GN story does not sound right. NP 900-905 were an ‘add-on’ to an existing NP order with Alco in 1937. 2 of the engines in this order were indeed ‘sold’ to the GN right after delivery, but were ‘sold’ back after WWII. The GN’s idea of an articulated was ‘weight on drivers’ …
There have been questions and stories about the GN ‘Challengers’ for years, but I will believe John Gaertner(North Bank Road). His research is always very complete. I’ll ask him if he has any additional info on the reason the GN ran the pair…
Jim