Big Boy

To help celebrate the Transcontinental Railroad's sesquicentennial, Big Boy came to Ogden for a few days. We went to check it out Friday afternoon. Simply, Big Boy is a BEAST! Here is a little info about it.

Big Boy is longer than two city buses, weighs more than a Boeing 747 fully loaded with passengers and can pull 16 Statues of Liberty over a mountain.

The American Locomotive Company 4000-class 4-8-8-4 locomotive, popularly named Big Boy, is an articulated steam locomotive manufactured between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue service until 1959.

25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul freight over the Wasatch mountains between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming. They were the only locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: four-wheel leading truck for stability entering curves, two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel trailing truck to support the large firebox.

The 4014, was re-acquired by the Union Pacific in 2013 to be restored to operating condition. Its restoration was completed in May 2019, and it has returned to service as the largest and most powerful operational steam locomotive in the world.

Without the tender, the Big Boy has the longest engine body of any reciprocating steam locomotive. The Big Boys were likely the heaviest steam locomotives ever built as well, at 1,208,750 lbs for engine and tender (772,250 lbs engine only).