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UP's Challenger No. 3985

Started by D._Frederick, September 21, 2005, 11:05:35 PM

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D._Frederick

This past week, UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD brought to Portland, Oregon the largest and most powerful operating steam locomotive in the world. This engine was built in 1943 and was used in regular service until 1962.

The engine is a 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement, the engine and tender is 122ft long and weighs 1,070,000 lbs.  It has about 6000hp and has a maximum traction power of 97,350lbs. It has an operation speed up to 70 mph.

Picture of locomotive and tender


Picture of back drivers.


Picture of front drivers.



It was a thrill to see such a massive piece of railroad equipment.

Furby

That's cool! 8) 8) 8)

Is it going to stay there or what?

DanG

Like WOW, even! :o  That's some serious mechanicals.  Those old engineers had to really know their stuff just to maintain and operate something like that!
"I don't feel like an old man.  I feel like a young man who has something wrong with him."  Dick Cavett
"Beat not thy sword into a plowshare, rather beat the sword of thine enemy into a plowshare."

sprucebunny

That's really neat ;D

Does it run ???

Where did they bring it from ?
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

sawguy21

WOW. They must have been busy feeding coal to that puppy. I miss the steamers. ;D
old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm

SwampDonkey

That sure is a monster. My mother's uncle took live video of the Tobique steamer back in the 50's. The last locomotive on that line was diesel and the line was retired back in 1988 I believe, after the '87 flood. Liability insurance has sky rocketed since 9/11 causing alot of the locomotive museums to quit offering rides.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

D._Frederick

No. 3895 is on tour of UP's track system, it steams around on its own power. The home base for UP's heritage fleet is Cheyenne, Wyoming.
I was told that it takes 4 day to heat the boilers 25,000 gallons of water to a working pressure of 280 psi. There is so much mass to the boiler and the 2 engines that it must be heated slowly to prevent damage.
This engine was coal fired, but was converted to oil to reduce fires along the railroad right away. Was told that this engine would only make 15 miles on its coal supply when pulling over the mountains. Its seems that it spent a lot of time getting supplied with coal and water. They also had to grease the engines connecting rods every 100 miles. On tour, they have 2 extra tenders to keep it supplied with water.

Gilman

FYI if anyone didn't know.
UP Union Pacific

Thanks for the pics D.
WM LT70, WM 40 Super, WM  '89 40HD
Cat throwing champion 1996, 1997, 1999. (retired)

Engineer

Bet that gave a few people a shock to see that big ol' beast rumbling and chugging along the tracks.    :o

SwampDonkey

I bet there is alot of old track in the country that couldn't take the strain of that beast without buckling up a bunch.  :o
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

beenthere

That big guy is used to inspect and 'live' test the track beds as well as the bridges to see if there is any need to do anything with them.  8) 8) ::) ::) :)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Ernie

What a beauty

brings back memories from my long gone youth watching the old steam engines.
A very wise man once told me . Grand children are great, we should have had them first

Tom

In my 1-3 years, my granddad would put me in the basket of the bicycle and we would ride to the train depot almost everyday.  I was known to all the train crews.  Granddaddy, being an old railroad man, was proud to show me off.   As I got a little older, we would take the car or I would ride the bike frame.   I remember the smells of the coal and the steam.  I was fascinated by the overhead water tank and spout.  I remember the stacks of wood along the track at the end of the depot.  The landing was always full of baggage wagons.  They were so tall that I had to climb the spoked wood wheels to sit on the board flatbed.  Instead of a single tree on the tongue, there was a large, oval iron handle and the porters pulled the carts to the cars and back to the depot, carrying mail and luggage.

The engine would slow and stop the passenger cars close to the depot door with a Whoosh of steam so thick that you couldn't see through it.  I would run alongside of the engine trying to be there when the steam was released.  There was a special feeling at that moment like the Locomotive was saying "whew!, let's take a break".

Mr. Joseph Knowles was the No. 1 Engineer on the railroad and a friend of Granddaddy.  I've had his hand on top of my head many times.   The porters, all knew who I was and  would ask of my whereabouts if I weren't there.

I have accompanied Mr. Knowles and Granddaddy to Lake Okeechobee many times to fish for Speckled Perch from a rented flat-bottomed boat in the Spring when they were on their beds.

Granddad always sat in the bow and jigged a little spoon, I was in the middle with my cane pole and minnows and Mr. Knowles always ran the outboard. About the biggest you could rent was 6 horse.  I guess once an engineer always an engineer.  I never really thought about it till now but I suppose he felt it was his job to run all the motors everywhere.   After all, The Judge shouldn't be doing the driving.

The Engine, I remember. was huge and had six drive wheels.   A brass bell was  mounted just behind the stack and seemed to ring almost constantly. I suppose there were codes and the engineer was talking with it, but I could never figure out why it was ringing.   The steam whistle was certainly used for communication. I've never heard anything as loud in all of my life.  The Engineer would make it "talk".   It gave the engine a life and seemed to be saying stuff.    whooo-ooo-ooooo-eeeeeee-ooooo-eeeee-ooooooooo   .........whoop! whoop!

There was a smell that was associated with the train stations back then that I've never smelled anywhere since.  I suppose it was the coal and the smoke and the steam and the steel and the iron and wood all in one place.  I miss it.

If you every want to see and feel pure power, watch the drive wheels of a Steam Locomotive as it tries to get a heavy load started.  You can almost feel the power building.  There will be a strain, the wheels may slip on the rails a little and then there will be a gush of steam as it reaches back for another breath to shove some more.  With an ever increasing rhythm, a mile long string of loaded cars will soon be on their way to their destination, every turn of the wheel getting them closer.

D._Frederick

Tom,

Glad to hear what you remembered of the steam trains. One of the things you don't see with the diesel locomotives that the old steam engines did was getting slack in the couplings. To get a long train started, the engineer would backup and then pull ahead several times to get slack in the couplings. When there was enough slack, the engineer would open the throttle more and there would be a big clank as each car would start to move. With the diesel engines, the whole train starts as one.

Tom

One thing they used to do that I find isn't done too much anymore is wave.    Engineers, conductors and porters back then probably had repetitive injury problems from waving.  They waved at anything and everybody.  It kind of gave us kids a feeling of knowing them and we were part of a big club.  It felt good to be included.   Sometimes they would even toot the whistle or ring the bell for you. :D

It was things like that that made life so different then.  It was a big thing to go down to the train station or the fish house or cross a bridge and look at what the fishermen were catching, or go sit in the resturant at the bus station and visit while having a cup of coffee.   There just isn't anywhere to go like that anymore.  Nobody has the time to go or the time to visit.  Kids are told to get out of the way.  Adults act oblivious to the world around them.  We've scheduled ourselves right out of the fun of living.   :-\

Minnesota_boy

Tom,
You need to take a trip to North Dakota.  No, not Fargo, but one of the smaller towns off the main highways.  Once off the main highway, be prepared to wave at every guy you meet.  I've noticed that the gals don't do much waving, but almost every guy does, and you are expected to wave back!  8)
I eat a high-fiber diet.  Lots of sawdust!

Tom

Cool!   Sounds like a reason for a trip.  :)

Bro. Noble

Six Thousand hp----Wow!

Dad has grandad's old Minneapolis steam traction engine.  It's big for a traction engine -----hard to find a lowboy that can haul it.  It's only 20 hp :D :D :D   I believe it takes a couple of hours to fill it with a garden hose and about that much longer to fire it if we have good wood.  To kinda put things in perspective,  a tractor that size at 1oo psi is supposed to have enough energy to put a one pound ball in orbit :o :o  Can you imagine the energy stored up in that locomotive :o

When those things blew up there were pieces of people and machine scattered over a wide area.  I'd heard all these tales and they instantly came to mind one time when I was firing the boiler for grandad.  One of the flues ruptured sending hot steam all over us,  I immediately started to make a break for it,  but grandad grabbed me and informed me that I needed to learn how to deal with a blown flu.  I couldn't see for the steam,  but he took the time to describe what he was doing as he tied back the pop off valve and closed the ash door and draft door after pulling out what fire he could easily.

I asked him later what we would have done if it had exploded.  He laughed and said it was only a flu that busted,  not the boiler-----If the boiler had busted we wouldn't have had time to think about it.
milking and logging and sawing and milking

wiam

A small local line runs a passenger ride a couple times a year.  We have not been on it but we passed it on the way home this summer.  We got in front of it and stopped by a crossing in town.  When they saw us sitting there in our car, I bet 3/4 of the people on the train waved to us.  It was cool :) :)

Will

sawguy21

beenthere, I imagine that monster would find a weak spot in a hurry. :D I remember the sound of the steam and watching them take up the slack. The whistle would carry for miles on a cold night
old age and treachery will always overcome youth and enthusiasm

Tom

Hey "D", Got anymore pictures of that rascal?   I'm gonna have some good dreams tonight.

CHARLIE

I loved railroading.  Best job I ever had, but long hours and because I worked "on the road" I was hardly ever home.  Not a good job for a married man.

Tom, both the old steam engines and the diesels had sanders in front of the drive wheels. If the engineer felt the wheels slipping, he could turn on the sanders, which would deposit sand on the rail to give the wheels better traction.

D_Frederick, I'm not sure about the diesels of today, but if we had a decent sized train, we always had to back up to bunch up the slack so we could get a running start.  When a train is starting to slow down, the engineer will start setting the brakes on the cars while keeping the engine brakes released. Plus he will increase the throttle a couple of notches. This way he stretches the train out and lets the cars drag it down to almost a stop. Only when he gets fairly slow will he decrease the throttle and apply the engine brake.  If he didn't do this and just put on the engine brake first, the train would begin slamming into the engine and by the time the slack got back to the caboose, it would throw whoever was back there from the rear to the front, plus it will gradually disassemble the caboose.  I know this from experience and it's not fun!  Anyway, once the train is stopped, it's stretched out with the brakes set.  To get started again, the engine has to build up enough air pressure to release the brakes (the longer the train, the longer this takes). Once the air pressur built up and the brakes were released, the engineer would back up to bunch up the first 10 to 20 cars so he could get a running start.  Because the last part of the train is still stretched out, the caboose just starts moving and doesn't start with a jolt.  On a train with boxcars, if I remember right, there was a boxcar length of slack in 100 cars.  When I was working the cane train, we had about 6 boxcar lenths of slack in 100 cars. So a good engineer had to know how to stop and start a train without tearing up the caboose or injuring the conductor who was in the caboose.

Most of our boxcars, tankers, gondolas, flat cars and hoppers had bushing bearings with mops that sat in a journal box.  The only cars that had sealed wheelbearings that I can remember were the ones that carried automobiles.  Anyway, when we had to pull over to a side track to wait on a superior train to pass, we would grab a hook, a suction pump and an oil can. We'd walk the train using the hook to open the journal door, then suck out the oil contaminated with rainwater, blow it out on the rocks and pour in fresh oil.  Today, all the cars have sealed bearings, so they don't have to worry about keeping them oiled so they won't get hot and break.  

Like I said, I don't know about the diesels of today.  Maybe they can start a train without bunching up the cars for a running start.  I just don't know.  One thing I do know, most of the trains you see today have only a 2 man crew. The engineer and a man to work the ground. There are no cabooses anymore.  

And Tom, we used to wave at other crews and anyone else we saw.  That's pobably because there was nothing to do between stops but talk and wave.  When I was in the caboose, I'd get my wheel reports done and then sit up in the cupola and watch and wave.
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

Tom

Something told me you would find this thread, Charlie.   you little instigator  :D

chet

Charlie,
One of da high points of this summers motorcycle trip with my boys was heading west into the setting sun late one evening on Highway 17 in Ontario. We were pretty much the only folks on the road. We seen four different trains dat evening and each one gave us a big wave and a long salute.   8)
I am a true TREE HUGGER, if I didnt I would fall out!  chet the RETIRED arborist

CHARLIE

Dats neat if dey blew dar whistle atcha. 8)  Lemme think........smoke smoke.....2 toots means I'm going forward.....3 toots means I'm gonn go backwards......2 long toots, 1 short toot, 1 long toot means I'm moving over and intersection....so watch out! If da train is already moving down da track, then TOOT TOOT must mean Hi ya motorcycle riders! ;D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

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