Most of you know this already I'm sure, but UP 4014 is running for the first time in 60 years on May 12th. I will not be able to go. I live in Tennessee, which is 25 hours away by automobile. I look forward to watching the videos that a lot of you are going to shoot from a safe position off of the UP right of way. Guys, let's use common sense and stay safe. We know what can happen when we don't.
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Rest assured, the Highway Patrols of the states through which the 4014 will traverse already have plans in place to insure the safety of the chasers.
This will be THE steam event of this century, barring a reconstructed NYC Hudson!
25 hours away! I got you beat, living down here in Florida. I remember hearing that it may come to Memphis, if that's true, I'll make that trip. Anyway I am also counting on numerous HD videos being posted when it is actually under way.
So it will NOT make the May 10 ceremony?
palallin posted:So it will NOT make the May 10 ceremony?
Of course it will. This excursion is on the return trip between Ogden UT and Evanston WY
Just responding to what the OP said.
Spoony81 posted:palallin posted:So it will NOT make the May 10 ceremony?
Of course it will. This excursion is on the return trip between Ogden UT and Evanston WY
The route she was born to conquer.
The ultimate "Never say never" for railfans.
I've been hearing "Never" for most of my 61 years, even from Mr. Steve Lee, whom I have the ultimate respect for.
Good morning to all. I will be there for the celebration, but sadly not for the return trip. I will be taking a go pro camera as well as a normal camera that can take video, so who ever wants to see what happened I will make a new post on here.
Nick Chillianis posted:The route she was born to conquer.
The ultimate "Never say never" for railfans.
I've been hearing "Never" for most of my 61 years, even from Mr. Steve Lee,
whom I have the ultimate respect for.
All it takes is someone willing to spend money.
Nick Chillianis posted:The ultimate "Never say never" for railfans.
Of course, the engine hasn't operated yet...
With less than a month to go.
No BB for ovet 60 years, converted to oil, and no long test runs. What could possibly go wrong?
Dominic Mazoch posted:No BB for ovet 60 years, converted to oil, and no long test runs. What could possibly go wrong?
Nothing?
Is the glass half empty or is it half full?
Tinplate Art wrote: "This will be THE steam event of this century, barring a reconstructed NYC Hudson!"
... I would love to see a reconstructed NYC Hudson, and wish the folks behind UP 4014's restoration every success - would love to see it.
However ... THE steam event of the century will be the resurrection of the fastest steam engine ever made, the Pennsy T1 Duplex!
https://prrt1steamlocomotivetrust.org/index.php
David
Some people who lived through things like Apollo 1 and 13, Shuttle disasters, plus Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, look at things a whole lot differently. Like making sure the thing works before showtime.
Tinplate Art posted:This will be THE steam event of this century, barring a reconstructed NYC Hudson!
Oh please...
The diesel behind it will be more interesting, and doing most of the work.
RICH: Sacrilege! 
Guess you are not a UP fan?
The real sacrilege is that there is no train coming east from California.
That's just your opinion Rich. I think it will be very special - the BB is an iconic engine famous the world over. There is great interest over here in England.
MIKE
This is excellent news; cheers to everyone behind the project!
I shall stay home and await the videos. Good luck to all attending. Beware those "chase convoys"...I found myself in one about 20 years ago and I vowed "never again"...the people were driving like Talladega. If it come out toward Chicago someday, however, I'm there.
Rick posted:
"Oh please...
The diesel behind it will be more interesting, and doing most of the work."
Out of all the coverage of the Bigboy I did not really see any mention of a special diesel, did I miss something?
What will be so interesting about the diesel you wrote about?
Thanks
Charlie
mike w posted:That's just your opinion Rich. I think it will be very special - the BB is an iconic engine famous the world over. There is great interest over here in England.
MIKE
Wow …. that's pretty cool, Mike. This 4014 project really sparked my interest in steam locomotive restoration/operation …. to the point of me making modest donations to small programs.
Thanks to Union Pacific for doing this. I hope they take advantage of these great assets, during the coming years. I hope not too many unexpected gremlins pop up for the steam shop crew in these final weeks.
Yeah, yeah yeah. Bring the Big Boy to Handley WV for a trip to Hinton WV and put 11500 tons of coal behind her and see how the BB performs, and put one in the back of the train also to make the test fair. The H8 is the ultimate in super power steam.
Larry
LLKJR posted:The H8 is the ultimate in super power steam.
With looks only a mother could love.
Steve: AMEN! GREAT engine, but one ugly beast! LOL!
Even my aerospace engineering major 20 year old grandson, Matthew, is pumped up for this totally AWESOME event, and has been avidly following the progress of the restoration. Maybe Rich made his remarks about THAT "diesel" as a tongue-in-cheek throwout to get a rise out of us foamers? Surely, he jests?
Personally, I love the looks of the H8 and the Y too.
Y6, YES; H8, NO! Of course, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
I will admit and give credit the N&W sluggers, but the thing was geographically the N&W steam were built to be able to pull a long train up the huge mountain grade and slug it out. Where as the Big Boy's were built to do the same thing, but be able to do it at greater speed. Also, they were built to be able to haul more weight than any other loco that I know of. Finally, to those die hart N&W fans I am not trying to make there steam locos sound bad I am just stating what I know through the facts of history.
Dominic Mazoch posted:Some people who lived through things like Apollo 1 and 13, Shuttle disasters, plus Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, look at things a whole lot differently. Like making sure the thing works before showtime.
That is more than a bit of hyperbole, if the big boy breaks down or otherwise doesn't do what they want it to do, it will be sad, but it won't exactly be that kind of event, we won't likely see anyone die or in the case of Chernobyl or Three mile island (not to mention that at the time of the disaster, both of those had been in operation for years, neither was on its 'maiden voyage' so to speak. Chernobyl was a crappy design, and Three Mile Island was a combination of corporate greed and plant operators who couldn't figure out what to do when things went south). The cost of rushing the Big Boy likely would be that it would end up being pulled dead head back to Wyoming after a failure. On the other hand, the UP seems to have put a lot on the line with this, wanting it ready for the 150th anniversary, and it sounds like people have put a lot of overtime already into getting this ready and I suspect there is a lot of pride riding on getting this beast to work, wouldn't be surprised if people are working literally around the clock to finish this.
I wish them well, and hope for success!
The C&O and N&W had some of the best looking steam locomotives!
H8 ugly? Them’s fightin’ words. 😁
bigkid posted:Dominic Mazoch posted:Some people who lived through things like Apollo 1 and 13, Shuttle disasters, plus Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, look at things a whole lot differently. Like making sure the thing works before showtime.
That is more than a bit of hyperbole, if the big boy breaks down or otherwise doesn't do what they want it to do, it will be sad, but it won't exactly be that kind of event, we won't likely see anyone die or in the case of Chernobyl or Three mile island (not to mention that at the time of the disaster, both of those had been in operation for years, neither was on its 'maiden voyage' so to speak. Chernobyl was a crappy design, and Three Mile Island was a combination of corporate greed and plant operators who couldn't figure out what to do when things went south). The cost of rushing the Big Boy likely would be that it would end up being pulled dead head back to Wyoming after a failure. On the other hand, the UP seems to have put a lot on the line with this, wanting it ready for the 150th anniversary, and it sounds like people have put a lot of overtime already into getting this ready and I suspect there is a lot of pride riding on getting this beast to work, wouldn't be surprised if people are working literally around the clock to finish this.
MUST you inject your political stuff into everything you post here. It gets tiresome.
Chernobyl was caused by human error in operating a test procedure on a 1940's design graphite moderated reactor. An antique yes, not a crappy design.
Three Mile Island was an industrial accident where a normal shutdown was occurring and an equipment failure caused the reactor coolant pumping issues and the overheating caused by decay radiation. NOT corporate greed.
Both are relevant in the quest to resurrect and operate a 60+ year old steam locomotive.
I wish the best for all involved, though to the uninitiated like me it seems like a pretty frenzied pace to get those drivers turning.
Admittedly, the H8 has a certain brutish charm about it, and its power cannot be denied! That having been said, its aesthetics do not come close to an N&W Class A or Y.
The Union Pacific has a lot on the line with the ressurection of the 4014, and rest assure, ALL appropriate and available resources have been provided to those skilled and hardworking shop crews in Cheyenne. This project is also about corporate pride, involving the most magnificent steam loco class ever built here in the US of A! I predict a successful maiden voyage, with perhaps some minor tweaking, as required with ALL restored steam locos! I should also point out that UP did a very fine job with the Bush 41 funeral train with a dignified and graceful transport of the late President, his family and invited guests. Union Pacific knows how to put on a show, and the 4014 will be no exception!
Tinplate Art posted:Even my aerospace engineering major 20 year old grandson, Matthew, is pumped up for this totally AWESOME event, and has been avidly following the progress of the restoration. Maybe Rich made his remarks about THAT "diesel" as a tongue-in-cheek throwout to get a rise out of us foamers? Surely, he jests?
My youngest son is a mechatronics engineering technology major at Purdue and he, and some of his classmates, are also interested in it.
Tinplate Art, …. I think many such students, as your grandson and my son, would be very interested in it. It would be neat if UP Senior VP Moore, who seems to be the man in charge of it, would engage these young people in some ways. Someone like Ed Dickens would definitely be a good face for the program.
Before steam engines become just a memory.
Jim: Well stated! 
Rule292 posted:bigkid posted:Dominic Mazoch posted:Some people who lived through things like Apollo 1 and 13, Shuttle disasters, plus Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, look at things a whole lot differently. Like making sure the thing works before showtime.
That is more than a bit of hyperbole, if the big boy breaks down or otherwise doesn't do what they want it to do, it will be sad, but it won't exactly be that kind of event, we won't likely see anyone die or in the case of Chernobyl or Three mile island (not to mention that at the time of the disaster, both of those had been in operation for years, neither was on its 'maiden voyage' so to speak. Chernobyl was a crappy design, and Three Mile Island was a combination of corporate greed and plant operators who couldn't figure out what to do when things went south). The cost of rushing the Big Boy likely would be that it would end up being pulled dead head back to Wyoming after a failure. On the other hand, the UP seems to have put a lot on the line with this, wanting it ready for the 150th anniversary, and it sounds like people have put a lot of overtime already into getting this ready and I suspect there is a lot of pride riding on getting this beast to work, wouldn't be surprised if people are working literally around the clock to finish this.
MUST you inject your political stuff into everything you post here. It gets tiresome.
Chernobyl was caused by human error in operating a test procedure on a 1940's design graphite moderated reactor. An antique yes, not a crappy design.
Three Mile Island was an industrial accident where a normal shutdown was occurring and an equipment failure caused the reactor coolant pumping issues and the overheating caused by decay radiation. NOT corporate greed.
Both are relevant in the quest to resurrect and operate a 60+ year old steam locomotive.
I wish the best for all involved, though to the uninitiated like me it seems like a pretty frenzied pace to get those drivers turning.
Nothing political about it, I didn't blame the government or politicians and the like. Do some reading, the Russians knew Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen, it was an antiquated design that was poor by the standards even of the time, it had major design flaws that helped lead to the disaster that happened and should have been offline years before, but they couldn't afford to take it offline (not to mention I wonder if the USSR government cared much, given the power plant was in the Ukraine, not Russia proper).
As far as Three mile island goes, I have very good reason for the statements I made. One of my professors in college , a physicist, was one of the people consulted when Three Mile Island went south, and he said that part of the problem was the control room operators and the managers there didn't know what to do, and worse, they delayed in contacting people for outside help (you can tell me he was a liar), among other things he said that GPU, the company running the reactor, was cited for not requiring more training for emergency situations. When I was in high school a navy guy was recruiting for the Navy Nuclear program, members of which were part of the effort to control the situation there, and he said that the Navy report on the incident said that the control room people were not trained enough to handle when things went wrong, that they didn't follow their own procedures (his words, not mine). Later on I made friends with a guy who lived on the same block I did, who worked for Babcox and Wilcox (the firm that designed a lot of the reactors) and he described what happened with power plants in general, and said that their engineers who had seen 3 Mile Island after it was built found corners cut, backup systems that w were supposed to be there and weren't, shoddy workmanship, and things like plain stainless used for radioactive water lines instead of the alloy they were supposed to be use, a nickel-steel alloy that wouldn't corrode. None of them had any reason to lie from what I can tell..hence my comments.
And neither of those plants had been rushed into production, one was built in the late 1940's, the other was built more than a few years before Three Mile Island had its incident, so neither was rushed. My main point was that in rushing the engine to make the May 15th date, there is no comparison, because if the big boy fails because they rushed it, it simply means it won't work as people expected, whereas with the other two incidents, people died because of what happened (with Chernobyl, it is in the thousands, with Three Mile Island no one is entirely sure, because it was much less an incident in severity, but there is evidence of elevated cancer risk in people living in the area.)......comparing incidents that killed thousands and potentially could have killed a lot more than that to a steam engine breaking down is hyperbole, rushing the big boy at worse may cause some embarrassment *shrug*.
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