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Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 1:25 pm
by Graaf Statler
This posting of Eric in Statler's bullshit railway deserve a special topic. It is in one word impressive. And OK, it might be a form of advertising, but it is also keeping a piece of magnificent American engineering alive.

ericbarbour wrote:
Just out of general interest, Union Pacific is one of those few American railroads still operating vintage steam locomotives for publicity. It must be a very expensive form of, but you know what railfans are like. They recently bought back the "Big Boy" 4014 from a museum and are restoring it to run again. The 4014 is probably the biggest and heaviest steam locomotive ever built, it literally weighs more than a fully loaded 747. I have the impression that it would not happen without UP oldtimers volunteering their labor.

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/index.htm

Moving the damn thing was a major operation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ji2aGJJAx8

Regular updates are being posted on YouTube. NOT a trivial job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St1MG_jTSek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyHEfxY7-d0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voXW9Ll6nls

Re: Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2019 10:52 pm
by ericbarbour
Thanks for separating this. It's literally bizarre to see an American corporation actually spending millions of dollars to preserve its own history. Most of them keep a token museum or library at best. IBM dumped their entire historical collection in 2000 and if the Computer History Museum hadn't paid to truck most of it across the country, I expect it would have been scrapped. Intel did the same. Automakers routinely sell off or trash their prototypes and show cars. "It's not a profit center"

A 1993 documentary:

Re: Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2019 12:53 am
by Graaf Statler
Doesn't play. is it this one?



And this one is very impressive, also the modern diesel locs. Because in Europe we have much smaller locomotives. But that is what I often hear from Dutch people who have visit America, everything is much bigger there. The trains, the cars, the portions in restaurants, the packagings in the supermarket, everything.


Re: Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:50 am
by ericbarbour
Graaf Statler wrote:Doesn't play. is it this one?

No, that's only a short piece of the old film. The docu I posted is an hour long.
Weird, maybe YouTube is declining and not bothering to keep unpopular videos available.

Here's the url if that works. Loads of detail.

It used bits of this 1950s UP documentary. Corny but typical of corporate promotional films of the era.