[NA] Now THAT'S a train...

TangoWhiskey

TangoWhiskey

Touchdown! Greaser!
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While at the State Fair of Texas this weekend, my bride and I toured the train museum / rail yard. They have what one gentleman told us was the largest steam engine ever built. I believe it. The main wheels were taller than I was. Here's some pictures. The first two don't make it look too big. Then my wife stands in the photo for some perspective. This was an impressive, beautiful machine.

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The mechanisms on those things are amazing.

I watched a steam train at high speed once, and I swear it seemed it should have just flown apart. Things moving in different directions and at different speeds and in different planes all at the same time.
They don't make engineers like that anymore.
 
PilotAlan said:
The mechanisms on those things are amazing.

I watched a steam train at high speed once, and I swear it seemed it should have just flown apart. Things moving in different directions and at different speeds and in different planes all at the same time.
They don't make engineers like that anymore.
Click to expand...

Same thing going on inside your airplane (and automobile) engine but it's mostly inside so you don't see it. Plus the flames are torching some of the moving parts.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
While at the State Fair of Texas this weekend, my bride and I toured the train museum / rail yard. They have what one gentleman told us was the largest steam engine ever built. I believe it. The main wheels were taller than I was. Here's some pictures. The first two don't make it look too big. Then my wife stands in the photo for some perspective. This was an impressive, beautiful machine.
Click to expand...

Largest steam locomotive perhaps, many steam engines were considerably larger than that but were stationary.
 
Troy, whoa! that's one big-a$$ chunk of steel! Thanks for posting pics!
 
Checks out those castellated nuts and cotter pins... they were as big as my head.
 
Steve said:
http://www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com/bigboy.html

I have a DVD of film footage of the "Big Boys" making the Cheyenne-Green River run in Wyoming.

I'm sure the ground shook when one went by.
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That's it!

Another friend reminisced:

I’m a particular fan of the old train stations. It seems like every town used to be measured by the quality of its train station. It is too bad that so many of them have been torn down instead of being put to another use.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the pics! I love trains since I was a kid. A few years ago while on a short vacation in Savannah my wife and I did a day trip over to Folkston, GA. It's called the Folkston funnel becasue of the amount of train traffic that goes through there. Seemed like every couple of minutes.
 
They have one of the "Big Boys" at a train museum in Denver. You have to see it in person to really appreciate the awesomeness of that machine.
 
gismo said:
Same thing going on inside your airplane (and automobile) engine but it's mostly inside so you don't see it. Plus the flames are torching some of the moving parts.
Click to expand...
I know what you're saying, but by engine doesn't have the same type and movement of parts.

The arms moving back and forth, the steam pistons, the release arms releasing the pressure, working in different planes and triggering off each others' movement, eccentrics, levers, etc.
Astounding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oWDAzC1JZg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TZJUaonI1I
 
In the last picture: Why did they cut the connecting rod (or whatever it's called) off?
 
fgcason said:
In the last picture: Why did they cut the connecting rod (or whatever it's called) off?
Click to expand...

I can actually answer that.

They needed to move it, and it had been way too long since anything at all on it had moved. The process of dismantling to the point it could be moved was more time consuming and destructive than just cutting it.

Hurts to see, doesn't it?

There is long-term hope that it will be restored to some extent. The museum is getting a new facility, and (one hopes) can raise its profile and fund-raising in the process. They really do have some nice rolling stock. Or sitting moldering away stock.

http://www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com/for_immediate_release.htm
 
Damn, that is massive.

I visited the Swiss transportation museum in Lucerne a few weeks ago, and in their train building there was a snow removal locomotive on display. It was pretty damn big, but nothing like this.

Here is a link to the image. It was too big to post.
 
jasc15 said:
I visited the Swiss transportation museum in Lucerne a few weeks ago, and in their train building there was a snow removal locomotive on display. It was pretty damn big, but nothing like this.
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Now those rail snowblowers just seem innately evil to me. They give me goosebumps in a picture.
 
SCCutler said:
I can actually answer that.

They needed to move it, and it had been way too long since anything at all on it had moved. The process of dismantling to the point it could be moved was more time consuming and destructive than just cutting it.

Hurts to see, doesn't it?

There is long-term hope that it will be restored to some extent. The museum is getting a new facility, and (one hopes) can raise its profile and fund-raising in the process. They really do have some nice rolling stock. Or sitting moldering away stock.

http://www.dallasrailwaymuseum.com/for_immediate_release.htm
Click to expand...

It doesn't look cut- it looks broken. Maybe someone tried to move it (with what, I don't know, LOL) and that piston stuck to the point that the arm snapped. Or perhaps it was fired up and the piston moved too fast when the wheels were not willing to move... whatever the case, it'd take a lot of force to break that piece!
 
PilotAlan said:
Now those rail snowblowers just seem innately evil to me. They give me goosebumps in a picture.
Click to expand...
There are several videos of rail snowblowers and rail snowplows on Youtube. It is worth a look!

-Skip
 
rottydaddy said:
It doesn't look cut- it looks broken. Maybe someone tried to move it (with what, I don't know, LOL) and that piston stuck to the point that the arm snapped. Or perhaps it was fired up and the piston moved too fast when the wheels were not willing to move... whatever the case, it'd take a lot of force to break that piece!
Click to expand...

It would take a lot of force to break it, wouldn't it?

As it happens, they used a cutting torch. It has not been under steam since it arrived at the museum decades ago.
 
Hi everyone. The Steamtown museum in Scranton Pa has a Union Pacific "Big Boy" in their yard. The last time I was there I was speaking to one of the curators who told me that they hook another locomotive to the Big Boy once a week and move it forward or backward a few feet because it's weight is so great that it will leave flat spots in both the rails and it's wheels if left sitting in one spot too long. The connecting rods may have been disconnected from the one in the picture for a similar reason.

....and a hello to the group from a new member. This is my first post here at Pilots of America.
 
OffCenter said:
Hi everyone. The Steamtown museum in Scranton Pa has a Union Pacific "Big Boy" in their yard. The last time I was there I was speaking to one of the curators who told me that they hook another locomotive to the Big Boy once a week and move it forward or backward a few feet because it's weight is so great that it will leave flat spots in both the rails and it's wheels if left sitting in one spot too long. The connecting rods may have been disconnected from the one in the picture for a similar reason.

....and a hello to the group from a new member. This is my first post here at Pilots of America.
Click to expand...

Welcome to the board. Which part of North Jersey are you in?
 
OffCenter said:
Hi everyone. The Steamtown museum in Scranton Pa has a Union Pacific "Big Boy" in their yard. The last time I was there I was speaking to one of the curators who told me that they hook another locomotive to the Big Boy once a week and move it forward or backward a few feet because it's weight is so great that it will leave flat spots in both the rails and it's wheels if left sitting in one spot too long. The connecting rods may have been disconnected from the one in the picture for a similar reason.

....and a hello to the group from a new member. This is my first post here at Pilots of America.
Click to expand...

WELCOME, George!
 
Thanks for the welcome, guys. Jack, I'm near Lake Hopatcong, a few miles north of Dover. Are you familiar with the area?
 
Yep...I used to live in budd Lake. Do the cops still hang out on Route 46 at the bottom of the hill into Hackettstown for speeders?

Commercial flights in to EWR often come over the Del Water Gap and come down I-80 past Lake hopatcong, Budd Lake then turn roughly southeast by Ledgewood to head down towrds Perth Amboy to follow the turnpike.

Lake Hopatcong is just off I-80...that means you're just up the road from most (all?) of the Nebraska group so you could come out & pay us a visit.
 
Ahh the hill into Hacketstown! I know it well! Yup, they still hang out there. I think that hill provides most of the annual budget for the town!!! LOL!!! On that hill, when they say 45 mph, they mean it.
And yes, I'm just off of Rt 15 a short distance from Rt 80. Lemmee hop in the car and I'll be in Nebraska in a flash! LOL!!!!! It never ceases to amaze me the number of people I run into on the internet who lived within a few miles of here at one time. Guess they were all smarter than me 'cause I still live here. LOL!!!!!!!!
 
I've been on every inch of I-80 from the GWB to about 5 miles west of Lincoln, NE...I think the gas card got maxed out here...

I remember watching someone that was driving out of Budd Lake in front of me on Rt. 46- one of those fools that think the road was made only for themselves- using both lanes and cutting people off. For those not from northern NJ...it actually has some topography- I think the drop from Budd Lake to Hackettstown is ~800 feet and Rt. 46 has a kind of switchback...people "in the know" look down the hill when making their run since you can usually see the cop hiding in the weeds from up there--the speed limit really is only 45 down there at the bottom of the hill but it's easy to be much faster. I was on the switchback and saw this clown streak past the cop and watched him get pulled over. He was almost into town before the cop caught up to him. It's not every day a driving jerk gets their reward where you can see it.
 
LOL!! Nice to see him get what he deserves!
The other thing that makes that stretch unique is that it is the ONLY stretch of road that I know of in all of northwestern New Jersey that has rain grooves cut into the pavement. Makes it VERY interesting on a motorcycle!
 
TangoWhiskey said:
The big train was cool; here's the other end of the spectrum
Click to expand...

That's insane. Inspired and I can see the fanatical motivation, but insane.

And to think I was complaining about building a 1/2"=1' stage set design model a few months ago.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how there is a hobby for everyone!!
....Oh yeah....Don't sneeze. LOL!!
 
Welcome to the boards, George!

Also, there is a Big Boy in Kirkwood, MO, at the Museum of Transport. Last time I was there, they also had a Chrysler Turbine Car...
 
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