OK Point taken. Still, how about a 65 car train.
Steve
steve24944
I would like to see UP run 4014 with a 100 car freight like he was designed to do. Let him earn his keep.
Steve
100 car freights of 40ft boxcars and 100 car freights today are two entirely different things.
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With the PSR syndrome, I don’t know if I’d lay a hefty amount on that bet.
One thought about the 4014-844 doubleheader is that the Big Boy is enormous, and the enormity of 4014 actually highlights the fact that 844 is pretty gosh-darn big in its own right!
UP and its big steam power - to quote Tim the Toolman Taylor: “Argh, argh, argh!!!”
to quote Tim the Toolman Taylor: MORE POWER!
I would. The UP crew has repeatedly said that 3985 is ‘next’ (and hasn’t had the ‘quality treatment’ rebuild) and UP funds their historic preservation outside of the ‘operations’ related departments that would be affected by PSR lite or whatever flavor of the thing UP cares to try.
How hefty a bet would you consider?
And a 100-car-equivalent singlestack consist of articulated equipment, let’s say equivalent by length, is … more or less difficult than the ‘legacy’ train?
Even with doublestacks I see no reason why 4014 wouldn’t do at least as well as 3985 did on similar intermodal equipment a couple of decades ago (has it really been that long???)
And if nothing’s changed since 2008 the UP steam program is under the auspices and funding of the executive department, not operations.
We’ve all seen a railroad in the east have a decent excursion program with steam, only to quickly and quietly shut it down with the changing of the executive guard. Executives have to answer to shareholders, and with PSR, will those shareholders be happy with money poured into a steam program (even if it is outside of operations)?
Esp. if BNSF jumps on the PSR train.
UP has always had a different culture, and while that might change I think their market cap is sufficiently great that no group of Children’s-Fund-like weasels could acquire enough influence to overcome it with misguided ‘shareholder wealth’ proxy-fight action.
Also important is that the steam shop is officially overseen by the VP in charge of quality management (which in case you were wondering accounts in large part for the aircraft-like documentation and specification methodology) and this has large support in UP management. Of course that might change if ‘the men who manage money’ want it to, but it’s often less expensive to tolerate this sort of expenditure than to replace all the people who support it.
Something I’m far more concerned about than activist shareholder Scrooging, though, is the thing that nominally killed the NS program in the Nineties: consequences from accidents or incidents in operation, or vastly bloated ‘nominal’ insurance coverage requirements. While I don’t see Union Pacific imposing on itself the same very high policy limits that killed the 765 trip for Steamtown recently – it would not take too many fatalities to bring about some pressure to reduce or even curtail excursions. (Now, I don’t think this would compromise maintenance on the two operating locomotives, or particularly delay the scheduled rebuilding of 3985, but it might well put all three in the same effective status as Cotton Belt 819 when she was ‘all dressed up with no place to go’ courtesy of a previous Union Pacific ukase.
There is an excellent article in the Spring 2019 Classic Trains about Big Boys working south of Ogden to Milford, UT on the Los Angeles & Salt Lake for 9 months in 1943.
Two items of note:
They apparently could roll 5,600-ton trains at speeds of 60–65 mph, and they gave such a good accounting of themselves that UP worked up preliminary plans for oil-fired Big Boy Class 4884-3 with a 33,000 gallon water tender on a 4-10-2 wheel arrangment.
However, with the A-bomb truncating the war, the order was never placed.
I rode on an excursion train pulled by the UP 844 from Denver to Sterling, Colorado many years ago. I also had an opportunity to ride on a train pulled by the UP 3985.
Does anyone know the net cost of the UP Steam Program, i.e. revenues minus expenses including interest and depreciation? I suspect the revenues don’t cover all the costs.
Jim Wrinn was quoted in USA Today as estimating the cost to restore the 4014 at roughly $4 million.
If I remember correctly, Stephen Lee was the engineer on the 844 trip. Is he still around?