UP "Big boy"

These monsters on rails were first built in 1941 at the onset of the United States entering WWII. There were only twenty five built they were desingnated the 4000 class starting of course at 4000 to 4025. They were built in two phases. Phase one was from 4000 - 4019 and phase two 4020 - 4025.

These magnificant machines were built primarly to haul long freight trains through the western United States on UP lines, ranging from California through Utah to Machigan (So I've heard.) These locomotives had an unbelievable amount of HP and weighed 540,000 lb or 245 tonns and with the tender this monster weighed 1,208,750 lb or 604.3t. Now try stopping one of these beauties on a dime with a two mile freight behind her going down a streight strech at top speed.

As mentioned ubove the big boy was built to handle long freight trains through the Utah mountains and up long grades one in particular known as "Shermans hill" of course it was WWII so freight trains mainly consisted of Military goods so it would be a safe bet these trains were long ones and the Union Pacific's Big Boy was the right tool for the right job at the right time. Never again will we see such a beautiful machine ever again. I have found a few videos of the Big boy on Youtube this one is by pentrexvideos he's got some really good videos and he also sells some from his personal website http://www.pentrex.com/.




And this next one is by ChronoStorm. It's a good video and there is even the THX sound test at the begening...haha oh well it's a great video and to some extent picked the right song to go with this particular type of Steam engine.