BangShift Blog Archive: A Look at the Union Pacific Big Boy Locomotives

[admin]

(Here’s a blast from the past. This blog item ran back in December of #2008 just after we got off the ground!) – We’re going huge by large with this Motorized Freak of the Week. While it may be slightly disrespectful to call a steam locomotive a freak, this machine qualifies on sheer size. Here [...]

More...

[TheSilverBuick]

It produces over 6,000 hp, it can pull a train weighing nearly eight million pound by itself up a grade of over 1.15 percent, it is capable of running at 80 mph (although they never ran anywhere near that in service), they have a piston bore of 23.75 inches and a stroke of 32 inches and the drive wheels are 68 inches in diameter. The engine and coal tender itself weigh 1.2 million pounds. The train consumed 12,500 gallons of water per hour and in the same amount of time would burn 22,000 pounds of coal. This kids, is serious freaking business.

Yeehaw! That's a lot of horsepower and weight! Over 200 gallons of water a minute and over 360 pounds of coal a minute! Talk about trying to keep this thing fed! Really defines the term "Pouring on the coal".