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maxm2317 — Me and the 833's MASSIVE Driving Wheel
Published: 2017-12-09 14:48:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 1720; Favourites: 25; Downloads: 0
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Here you can see me doing my best "Derp Face" as I gawk at the size of ex-Union Pacific 833's MASSIVE 80-inch diameter drive wheels. It's worth noting that all of Union Pacific's 4-8-4 Northerns, 4-6-6-4 Challengers (both Arthur H. Fetter's "Light Challengers" and Otto Jabelmann's "Heavy Challengers"), and 4-8-8-4 Big Boys all had roller bearings on EVERY SINGLE axle. It really makes you feel so small when you're up against such a once-powerful and proud machine from a bygone era, and railfans such as myself can be proud that there are people out there who are dedicated to preserving these magnificent machines for future generations to enjoy and study about.Related content
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If you think that’s big, you haven’t seen the Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 4000-Class “Big Boys.” They were the LARGEST steam locomotives ever built in the whole world. The only steam locomotive type that could come close to these brutes in terms of size were their contemporaries, and those were Arthur Fetter’s earlier Light Challengers and Otto Jabelmann’s later Heavy Challengers which shared some looks with the Big Boys. Both types of Challengers had a wheel arrangement of 4-6-6-4. Overall, the Union Pacific had a grand total of 105 Challengers. A total of 24 Big Boys were built between 1941 and 1944 by the now-defunct American Locomotive Company (ALCO, for short) workshops in Schenectady, New York. Heck, the first batch of fifteen (4000-4014) arrived on the scene just as America was attacked at Pearl Harbor during the Second World War. As WW2 dragged on, Union Pacific found themselves in a bit of a power crunch on their Utah-Los Angeles division, and they’d contemplated ordering five more Big Boys from ALCO, and these brutes would’ve been a little bit longer than the originals to accommodate the new 33,000 gallon water tank in the tender. All five would have been built as oil burners right from the start as opposed to the originals—which were strictly coal burners. That is, until 2019, when newly-restored Big Boy #4014 steamed out of the Cheyenne Steam Shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming as an oil burner. He had been restored by his original owner in time for the 150th Anniversary of the completion of the first American Transcontinental Railroad that was completed on the 10th of May, 1869.
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Holy shit man, I didn't think they could get that big!
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Well, 84 inches in diameter was about as big as they got. Keep that in mind.
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jeez, I thought 610's was big
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T&P 610. Ah i guess 611 to
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Mm-hmm, but have you seen the drivers on the MASSIVE ATSF 2-10-4s?
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in the words of the great mighty barry......*Eyoup*
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I thought so, but I haven't.
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Yup. The MASSIVE 80-inch diameter drive wheels on Union Pacific's FEF-2 and FEF-3 4-8-4 Northerns made them fast and powerful, and the roller bearings on ALL engine and tender axles all but authorized these big engines to run at speeds up to, if not, exceeding, 100 miles per hour. Heck, one of these big 4-8-4s was even clocked at a STAGGERING 120 miles per hour! Their primary assignments were on fast and heavy mail and express passenger trains, but they worked just as well with fast and heavy freight trains. The freight assignments were the end of the line for most of Union Pacific's big Northerns, but four of them are still around today. However, that's a story for another time.
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Dang, I can only imagine how big the LOCOMOTIVE is!
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The locomotive and tender combined are 114 feet 2⅝ inches long. Do ya wanna know how heavy it is?
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*gulp* I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say.....14,000 tons?
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Actually, when fully-loaded, both engine and tender weigh 454 tons.
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Insane, huh? Believe it or not, but the Santa Fe Railway's (ATSF) 2900 Class 4-8-4 Northerns weighed 487.425 tons. All told, the ATSF 2900s were the HEAVIEST 4-8-4 Northerns built due to 1940s wartime restrictions requiring their boilers and fireboxes to be built with heavier carbon steel as opposed to the more traditional nickel steel as per the original specifications. This not only made the 2900s the heaviest 4-8-4 Northerns ever built, but it also made them more powerful because the weight of the INSANELY heavy carbon steel boiler was evenly spread out over all eight main driving wheels.
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