UP's Big Boy comes to Chicagoland

UP restored Big Boy #4014 to help celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad. It is one of the eight surviving Big Boys of the 25 that were built by Alco between 1941 and 1944. By the time they were retired from revenue service in 1959, each one had worked over a million miles. UP and Chicago media are calling Big Boy the world's largest steam locomotive. But that is controversial because it depends on which metric you use to measure the locomotive: tractive effort, horsepower, weight, length, height, fire grate area, ton-mile/fuel consumption, ton-mile/cost, etc. [Trains, note the comments about the N&W Y6] But I'm willing to bet it is the world's largest operating steam locomotive.

Screenshot

I, and others, got photos and videos of it when it came to West Chicago, IL, for a few days. There are more photos and screenshots of #4014 in Walschart Valve Gear. This is my video.

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Benjamin Lundquist posted the comment:

BIG BOY 4014 - 4-8-8-4 Steam Locomotive.

Joe Jordan 814- Water Car

Jim Adams 809- Water Car

Locomotive 3025- EMD SD-70 series Diesel-electric locomotive produced by Electro-Motive Diesel.

Art Lockman 6334- A Tool Car built by the St. Louis Car Company as a baggage car. Converted to a cool car for snowplow service in 1973. It was named after a roundhouse foreman and steam locomotive expert, Art Lockman in 1992. It carries a stand-alone generator and under-slung tanks for fuel storage. tools, parts, machines, lubricants, and other items to repair and maintain the locomotives. The car has a lounge area, locker room, and laundry.

Howard Fogg 209- Steam Locomotive support car built in 1949 by American Car and Foundry as baggage-dormitory. Converted to boiler-dorm-HEP (Head End Power) in 2000, it has both steam and electrical generators. It was named after renowned railroad artist native to Chicago.

Lynn Nystrom 5714- Built in 1957 by American Car & Foundry as a postal storage car. Now a baggage-recreation area. Once named the Pony Express, Golden State Limited, it was renamed after the Steam Team member and engineer in 2010

Challenger 7015 - Dome Coach built by Pullman Standard in 1958. This was the last dome car built. The short end has coach style seating for 16, at the long end the car has coach style seating for 20. The dome has seating for 24.

Promontory 5752- Union Pacific Experience

Green River 1602- A deluxe sleeper stabled at council bluffs that was built in 1949. It has 8 private bedroom and bathrooms.

Power car 2066- Originally built as a postal storage car (5816) by American Car & Foundry 2066 was rebuilt as a power car to provide electricity to the train and passengers.

Walter Dean 9005 - Build in 1955 by American Car & Foundry. A Dome lounge car named after a UP waiter on the Challenger. It has a small room containing card tables and chairs, followed by a bar and seating for 8. The long end has seating for 18 and seating for 12 in the dome.

City of Denver 5011- A dining car Built in 1959 by the St. Louis Car Company. Configuration includes a kitchen and seats 36 guests at 6 round tables.

Kenefick 119- Business Car stabled at Council Bluffs Pullman built it in 1950. Inside is a kitchen, crew room that sleeps 2, dining room for 8, observation area seats 6-8. 2 bedrooms with individual lavatory, but shared shower. Also 1 secretary room that sleeps 1. (Sleeps 3 guests and 2 crew)

It didn't smell. I remember steam locomotives having a rather distinctive smell. Is the lack of smell because this is the first oil-fired locomotive that I have seen up close and personal?

UP's tracker site provides a nice overview of their system. The yellow line marks their route. It has already been up to Duluth, MN. It is now headed west back to its home in Cheyenne, WY.

UP Tracker

About a minute into this video the fireman shows that he can "turn on" the black smoke for the crowds even when using oil instead of coal.

Screenshot
Big Boy at Lombard

A video with a different view of Big Boy on the same curve I caught it on.
Richard Fiedler The whistle is a Nathan 3 chime whistle. This whistle gives off a low tone and is called a “steamboat “whistle. Lots of roads used this type whistle; IC, Frisco, Wabash, N&W, UP to name a few. This locomotive only has a steam whistle and no air horn. The size of the engine or the whistle has no influence on the application, merely the preference of the railroad.

WGN-TV chased it with a helicopter for over 45 minutes. But they were more interested in the crowds than they were of the locomotive. I wonder what part of this raw video the news editors decided to put on TV. I was surprised by how often it produced black smoke even when there was no crowd in sight since it has been converted from coal to oil. The guy standing at the top of the ladder around -18:14 doesn't seem to have a harness on. If he gets lunged off while waving, his safety vest is not going to protect him. I would think they would put a couple of chains across the opening before the locomotive moves.  There is some visible side-rod action starting at -16:52. And an even closer view at -16:25. The bridge at -3:53 is here. If WGN likes crowds, they did the wrong stretch. Instead of this freight line, they should have done the commuter route between Elmhurst and West Chicago. At the end of WGN's video, we see that UP is still running coal trains.

While I was taking video, my daughter took some photos.

Karen DeBruler posted

Hello Big Boy!

It's not everyday you get to see one of the worlds largest operating steam locomotives drive by on the tracks.
Built in 1941, this locomotive tops in at 1.2 million pounds and 133 ft long. This train is on its multi-state tour to mark the 150 anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad

Below are two of her photos loaded from the original cell phone resolution of 4032 x 3024.

Karen DeBruler 1

It has traveled from north of Milwaukee to Elmhurst, IL. That is, it has been traveling for several hours. Thus there is a lot of oil on the connecting rods. The bicycle chain drives one of the self-lubricating mechanisms.

Karen DeBruler 2

I digitally zoomed in on the chalked Big Boy tag in Karen's first photo. It is a homage to the tag placed on the first 4-8-8-4 (#4000) while it was still in the Alco plant in 1941. UP planed on using the nickname Wasatch, which is the mountain range over which this locomotive was designed to haul fast freights. But Big Boy stuck as the nickname.

Digitally Zoomed

It is supposed to be done with more of a V (for Victory) as was done during a run in May.

Robert Teed commented on a post
This was from the run in May.

The "V" in the original tag came up between the two words.

Jeff Lewis commented on a post
This is about the best pic of the chalk mark on the smokebox door I could find. It takes a little squinting but it's there.

Video at La Fox, IL. Fortunately, you can move the slider to skip the first 8 minutes.

10:52am, July 30, 2019 at Rochelle Park from a live feed. It sat there for a while. As someone commented, where did everyone park? At 11:08, it finally moved out, slowly.

Live Feed

And then you get to watch a lot of people get on UP's mainline tracks..

Live Feed

Live Feed, the tracks were covered with people for more than a minute

Jack Anderson posted two photos with the comment: "UP 4014 rolls along the rock river at sterling IL on 7/30/19."

1
[Note the cloud of smoke starting with the two dome cars in a row. It looks like it was running dirty and then the fireman made an adjustment.]

2

I took advantage of the significant number of videos and photos of Big Boy on Facebook to record the position of the Walshart Valve Gear.

UP did not shut down their freight operations for the Big Boy. In the following video we see they ran a freight past the Geneva station that skunked the view of those that had been waiting for it on the platform.

Justin Williams posted

It was moving rather fast in this video.

Marty Gatton posted

It was moving rather slow in this video.

WCCO-TV posted

It was moving rather fast past the DeKalb, IL, depot, but the radius bar is in about the same position as the above slow moving image.

Screenshot @ -0:22

Excerpt from the second photo posted by Don Dieckmann.
Dennis DeBruler A couple of years ago I walked downstream of that bridge using the Fox River Trail looking for a break in the trees. I was defeated. Fortunately, you found a way to get past the trees.
https://www.google.com/.../@41.8814437,-88.../data=!3m1!1e3
[Judging from the smoke, the train was moving right along. I thought about using this bridge to take my video. But it would have been, at best, just a couple of seconds. So I stayed home since I had already recorded the video that is at the top of these notes.]

This was going slow. I think this is the maximum distance from the pivot point that I found so far. It must be starting from a stop at the depot because it is still releasing steam from its cylinder cocks. They have to be careful to blow out any water that may have condensed out during the stop because water is not compressible.

Screenshot @ -0:44

This is a photo after the oil had been cleaned off the front of the rods and it was parked for display.

Waldolf Ursine posted
a view of the drive wheels of the @UnionPacific #UP4014 #BigBoy #Steamengine on display at the U.P. Provo Training Center in #WestChicago Il this past Saturday 7-27-19Jim Wiley Does anyone know what the bicycle chain does above the one set of drive wheels?
Tom Podraza its a Mechanical lubricator that is driven by the drive wheels it pumps oil onto the critical parts.
Dennis DeBruler This has a nice view of the inside of the expansion link slot. The white area shows that they have used most of the forward (down) movement of the radius bar and almost as much of the backward (up) adjustment. I'm still trying to figure out if maximum cutoff is near the central (pivot, neutral) point of the slot or at the end of the slot.

These two workers also help provide scale.

Kevin Domrois

Screenshot @ -1:07
[This video had the best "bark" as it went by. The bark is the sound of the exhaust steam leaving the cylinder and going up the stack.]

I'm now switching back to regular railfan presentations.

Steven J. Brown posted
Union Pacific 4014 climbs Archer Hill departing Cheyenne, Wyoming - July 8, 2019.
[The comments are controversial about weather or not the diesel was pulling or braking during the run.]

So far, the champion smoker.

Steven Kakczki posted

West Chicago,IL      July 30th, 2019

Gilbert Sebenste How do you always get the shots with huge steam billows? That;s a phenomenal shot!
Steven Kakoczki Gilbert Sebenste timing....I knew he was going to be accelerating out of West Chicago.
Steven Kakoczki Rt-38 & Kautz Rd

Jared Buerck posted
This was 4014 stopping to swap crews in Proviso.
Jarrod Olliver Oil fire burning to much oil with no draft.
[I knew it stayed at Proviso for a while because we waited a long time for it to arrive in Elmhurst after its location was reported as Grand Ave.]

Nick Dombi posted 35 captioned photos and produced the following video.
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The third clip in this video got a better recording than I did of the long-long-short-long signal.
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Josh Cohen posted 25 photos.

Rob Olewinski Cmraseye posted 19 photos.

The start of some photos on Mark Llanuza's Flickr (use the right arrow to scroll through the photos)

I contributed to comments about the number of people on the tracks in this posting.

Photos and/or videos of it crossing the Fox and Mississippi Rivers, by the ore dock in Duluth, on a bridge going to Duluth, under the coal tower in DeKalb and passing the depot in DeKalb.

Big Boy 4014 Comeback video includes an interview with Ed Dickens.

A video and several photos  (source)


I used Karen's photo that she posted to Facebook to determine the resolutions of various media platforms.

Original Resolution	4032 x 3024
Facebook, Small	960 x 720
Facebook, Large	1440 x 1080
Blog, Embedded	640 x 480
Blog, Clicked	1600 x 1200
Google Photo Download	4032 x 3024

13 photos of details

It is coming to Chicagoland again in 2024.

up

Sunday, Sept. 8
Rochelle, Ill. Union Pacific Ike Evans Global III Terminal 2701 Intermodal Drive	On Display: 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. CT Admission to see the Big Boy is Free and Open to the Public.
Monday, Sept. 9
Rochelle, Ill. (8:00 a.m. departure) to Villa Grove, Ill.
Rochelle, Ill. Rochelle Railroad Park 124 N. 9th St.	Arrival Depart	8:45 a.m. CT 9:00 a.m. CT
Watseka, Ill. North St. Crossing	Arrival Depart	5:00 p.m. CT 5:30 p.m. CT
Tuesday, Sept. 10
Villa Grove, Ill. (9:00 a.m. departure) to St. Louis, Mo.
Nokomis, Ill. Maple St. Crossing	Arrival Depart	12:15 p.m. CT 12:45 p.m. CT