got a ¼ mil burning a hole in your pocket? ...
Tom Miller - BigBoy
with apologizes to those who do not consider live steam locomotives, "Real Trains".
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In terms of how to classify this, it falls into that gray area between model and real. Just because it isn't 1:1 scale, doesn't make it less than a real steam engine.
I can understand the price, but it's a little out of my league. There's a club about 5 miles from me where I could run it, but I think I'll just stick to what I have in my basement. Too bad, because it even has the right number for me.
Seems like a great value, actually, at $245K. 11,000 man-hours to construct. That's 8 hours a day, 49 weeks a year, for more than 5.6 years. If you subtract parts, probably only $19-20 per hour labor to build it, by some incredibly skilled craftsmen.
How much more efficient the process would have been if they would have had orders for and built, say, 5 of them instead of just one.
The Big Boy is nice... but I'm rather partial to the K-36 listed above it... 
WindupGuy posted:The Big Boy is nice... but I'm rather partial to the K-36 listed above it...
yup, i've seen a K36 in 2.5" scale and it is a monster. also nicer to be able to pull a prototype train vs the mile long drag you'd also need to finance to make the Big Boy look like it's working.
i sure hope all his equipment stays on the west coast.
cheers...gary
No mention of whether or not that will run on 0-72 curves? 
Just think if you buy this "Big Boy", and you live near Cheyenne, you could get some coaching from "ED" on how to care, and run it properly!....
overlandflyer posted:got a ¼ mil burning a hole in your pocket? ...
Tom Miller - BigBoywith apologizes to those who do not consider live steam locomotives, "Real Trains".
Ohhhh yes they are! I gotta friend that has a 34 acre layout near Stamping Ground, Ky.
Got a 110' Tunnel, and a bridge the trains cross, that's over 100' long and 40 feet high. Best trips that I take are down there to play trains. People come out of the wood work when he has his steam ups during the warm months of the year. You name em, and there all there, every kind of wheel arrangement that you can imagine................I have more fun with the live steamers than a "Monkey" on a hundred foot of grape vine!........
This engine has lots of miles on it, my dad has seen this loco in action at Goleta in the late 80s-early 90s.
The K-36 is nice but my dad has 2 steamers, so I decided building a 2.5 inch scale Galloping Goose.
Last time I asked the castings for the Challenger & Tender cost $50K and are available.
