In "The Railroad Encyclopedia" (Author not stated; Longmeadow Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan; 1996), states that there are eight Big Boys left: 4004 - Cheyenne, Wyoming (owned by UP) 4005 - Denver, Colorado 4006 - St. Louis, Missouri 4012 - Scranton, Pennsylvania 4014 - Pomona, California 4017 - Green Bay, Wisconsin 4018 - Dallas, Texas 4023 - Omaha, Nebraska The book also states that 25 were built. When compared to some other classes of steam locomotives that existed, and 8:25 survival ratio isn't that bad! -Nick
E8 The link to this story, (at the source),is no longer there. I sent some info to slimjim perhaps we will see something on the 'Wyoming Rails' site soon. 2slim
Thanks for that info Pooh, these steam locos deserve to be on the rails, kinda like that one Challenger that still runs today for excursion.
That whole thing was a farce. As far as anyone knows, 4018 never got a lick of work done toward restoration. There have been a lot of words written on this subject elswhere on the net.
Hey Fitz, if I was the restorer of that 4018 I'd make that sucker run. God gave us brains to destroy and rebuild, I'd say lets do the restoration ourselves and have that Big Boy back on the rails where he belongs. Notice how I said "he", I prefer to call anything a "He" or "She" if it has a name similar to a human. Cause after all these steam locos breathe like a human & need to be feed for it to move.
I guess you'd have to call a Big Boy "he." 4018 was involved in a movie--the movie company had some guy Danny somebody who was hyping restoring the engine. Apparently money was collected from some interested railfans and a whole lot of people are really ticked off. There was even a website but apparently it has been very inactive. The locomotive was actually moved a few feet at it's home in a Texas RR museum.
I wish I had 100 million bucks, I'd buy all the Big Boy locos and have all of them run again, not to mention build new track just for these locos. Imagine taking a trip on one of these monsters, the sights and sounds from it.
