Solid restored locomotive Steaming to Ogden for Thursday Golden Spike Collection (2024)

Cheyenne, Wyo.• It is longer than two city buses, weighs more than a Boeing 747 completely full of passengers and can pull 16 freedom animals over a mountain.

OfBig Boy No.4014 Steam locomotiveGerold from a Pacific Pacific Shop in Cheyenne during the weekend for a big debut after five years of restoration.A party Thursday, part of his annual tour to commemorateTranscontinental Railway 150 Year anniversary.

Big boys drew shipping between Wyoming and Utah in the 1940s and 1950s.

Every big boy was built for steep mountain quality and had no but two huge engines under a 250 -tonne kettle that was able to keep enough water to cover an area so large from a basketball court to the depth of a high shoe.

The locomotives are not only large, they are so complex that steam train buffs have long been considering to repair one to a fully operational state, anything but impossible, said Jim Wrinn, editor of Trains Magazine.

They were "the highlight of steam locomotive design" in the years before diesel engines took over as the cheaper, more effective standard for American railways, said Wrinn.

"It's a pretty big problem," said Wrinn.Nobody ever thought a big boy would ever be restored.

Bij.10.30 Thursday Thursday, Big Boy No.4014 and "Living Legend" Northern No.844, the last Steam locomotive that is delivered to Union Pacific, meet at Ogden Union Station.Driving the ceremonial golden spikes.

Utah Gov.Gary Herbert and Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz will be collected in the eyes of Margaret Yee and Sandy Dodge to print a ceremonial peak, according to a news announcement.Thousands of Chinese immigrants who threw the railwayFor the Central Pacific Ocean.

Union Pacific no longer has traces near Promontory Summit, which was removed to support scrap projects during the Second World War.were connected.

Ogden Steam Meet is a day before the Spike 150's Celebration Friday on Promontory Summit, withWorkreplicates from Union Pacific No.119 and Central Pacific JupiterLocomotives for steam engine.

Union Pacific did not say how much the Big Boy # 4014 restoration costs, but Wrinn estimated at least $ 4 million based on comparable restorations. Spoor traces.

"Living Legend" Northern No.844 has been used since 1944. Big Boy No.4014 will participate in the advertising work of no. 844 as a rail version of Goodyear Blimp, the Wrinn.lokomotives said Union Pacific System in 2019.

Few trainsmeurs nowadays know what it is like to run a steam locomotive, although the retired Union Pacific engineer Mickey Cox once got a short turn.

The cabin had no air conditioning behind the large Kolen Kolen and became dirty, Cox remembered his trip, including driving through a tunnel between Cheyenne and Laramie.

"Everyone in the cabin is, you know, covered with soot while walking through the tunnel over these things. And it gets very hot. When you come at the end of the tunnel, you feel free to seddaglicht," said Cox, ifDad and Grandpa worked in the railway industry in Wyoming."It would have been a tough job today, I know for sure."

Big Boy No.4014 has been converted to burn fuel oil instead of coal, but even less dirty, but even fewer people know today the experience to control it.Running since 1962.

A retired employee of the Pacific Pacific, Jim Ehernberger, remembers the big boys well.

"You could certainly see when a big boy left the city. The earth vibrates a little more than with the other types of locomotives. They were very, very powerful," said Ehrenberger.

Union Pacific dragged Big Boy No.4014 to Cheyenne in 2014 after he had taken it over from a museum in Pomona, California.

"They actually had to completely separate the locomotive from just the frame and the scale," said Wrinn."It was a huge company."

Salt Lake Tribune has contributed to this report.