4-8-8-4

Nice photo. That's the kind of beast that knocks 10 tanks in a row off the line and it doesn't even cause a vibration in the coffee cups in the dining car

Wow, that's a monster. The stretch limo of the steam world. I could prob. spend a day or two w/ detail shots.

What a beast

I wouldn't fancy being the fireman on that engine, you would work flat out just to keep steam pressure up at rest.

Martin

@Martin Aislabie Hehe, the saving grace of these almost mid-20th century beasties is that they were stoker fired. This class wasn't but some of its 4-6-6-4 little sisters were successfully converted to burn oil. Including the loaded tender we're talking about 132+ feet in length and 1,250,000 pounds! What's exciting is that in the UP shops in Cheyenne Wyoming, one of these is in the queue to be restored to operation for excursion service!

I've had this locomotive described to me once by a railroad historian and was duly impressed. He said one was used once to prove the superiority of steam power by hooking it up to 20 diesel locomotives to see who could pull who. The Big Boy won. I don't know if it's really true but it was quite a story. Seeing the photo I'm really impressed.

Very nice