big boy locomotive

heard that it is going to be out of the shop soon there in cheyanne wy.  any one know any dates ,times ect.  i sure would like to see it going across wyoming wide open pulling a load

I haven't seen Austin Barker, my friend who works at the UP steam locomotive shop since last year.  Seems like I heard the Big Boy is still several months away from being finished.  Most of the parts they had made for it were in last fall but there is a tremendous amount of reassembly to do, then testing and adjusting.  I'll call his uncle tomorrow and find out more.

Here's an update Ed did a couple  months ago,  https://youtu.be/-P1OkYT9lOY



Edited by JohnCO - 14 May 2018 at 1:33am

i have got to see the 844 and the challanger ,   but when the big boy comes out i am closeing up and driveing to cheyanne to see it

Just talked to Jim, Austin's uncle.  Last word is that they hope to debute the Big Boy about a year from now.  Currently they are installing stay bolts, hundreds of stay bolts, each of which have a cap welded over it to keep water from leaking while firing the boiler.  Something I didn't know is that they will fill it with fairly hot water, 150 degrees or so because 1. it will take a long time to get the boiler up to temp and 2. it is less stressful on the unit.  After the stay bolts are installed, the tubes will be installed and rolled tight.  I've helped work on steam tractors and the biggest tubes we installed were 3" on an Avery engine.  Some of the tubes on the Big Boy are 8" and 12".
On a slightly different note, Jim mentioned that someone is building a Case 150 hp steam tractor from scratch.  Case built 4 of the big ones but had lots of trouble with them and they were scrapped and the boilers used for other purposes.  One boiler survived and was used as a copy for a new one.  The builders are hoping the 100 years of metallurgy improvements will overcome the problems Case had back in the early 1900's.  They hope to have this engine at a show this summer somewhere in the upper Midwest. I'm going to google case 150 engine and see what comes up.
I'm going to Ohio for the 4th of July and am thinking of stopping at the wrecking yard where the Case 110 engine is sitting in Medina.  This is the one that blew up a dozen or more years ago, killing several people.  I understand there are still some unsettled lawsuits over it.

I wanna be there when they pull him outta the roundhouse for the first time.