If they wanted to get them to blend in, they would need to lower them and cover them with graphiti...
When I lived down there and visited their display, which was open to the public about every other Saturday and when the Fair was in operation, the locomotives were in excellent condition, well cared for. They also had some piped in sound to enhance the display.
I am hoping that this is a new era being ushered in. With the Virginia Railway Museum (if that's the correct name) announcing the "go ahead" for the restoration of Norfolk & Western's J3 #611 and now UP stepping up and doing this with the Big Boy, things could be looking up for steam fans and excursionists! There is also an articulated (#1218) 2-6-6-2 at the Virginia Railway Museum that MIGHT could be next if #611s excursions are profitable. Seems like I also heard that the Smokey Mountain Railroad in Western NC (again, not sure if name is just right) just finished up a steamer for excursion purposes and that its proceeds were (hopefully) going to go towards the unfinished, somewhat abandoned, restoration of Southern #722, a 2-8-0 that used to run excursions through the late 90s or so. I say hooray! Bring out those big boys so they can steam again! (Pun intended!) Oh, I sure hope they don't convert #4014 to an oil burner. There is plenty of coal. Perhaps they can run an extra water tender like they did when #611 was still running excursions? Dean
The 3985 burned coal when it was first restored. However, it seems that out west, a lot of brush has grown up adjacent to the right of ways since steam went away back in the 50s. The coal cinders were starting a lot of wild fires on public and private land whenever the 3985 ventured out from her base in Wyoming. With all the bad publicity that was generating, the UP thought it prudent to convert it to oil. We will see how they handle the 4014.
So that's not going to happen. Profitability + Steam Engine = not this day in age, or at least only in a select few circumstances. Really surprised to see UP taking this on. I always thought the challenger was as large as was reasonable to run on excursions. I'm wondering what condition the boilers in? That's the expensive part. The rest of it was made to be maintained or repaired, but the boiler is a whole nuther headache, and most the guys with that skill set are long gone. I allways get yahoos that find out I'm into trains that either tell me about the lionel train set they had that would be worth millions today or that someone's restoring a big boy. I've heard that rumor for over 20yrs now and no one could ever tell me WHO was restoring it. At least now I have an answer for them! What would be nice is if they were to keep the public in the loop on progress, maybe have a website that's dedicated and updated frequently with the whole process. It could be a lot of good PR for UP. Kevo BTW, I can almost guarantee its going to run on some form of oil. While coal may be abundant, there are no coaling facilities on the railroads anymore and it would be hard to load without a front end loader. Oil can just be pumped out of the truck and into the tender. Oil is significantly easier to deal with from a loading and sourcing standpoint.
Actually sourcing has been a problem in the past. They burn recycled motor oil in the 3985 and 844 now. However, some sources provide motor oil that has antifreeze mixed in with it. Some garages pass off the mixture and then the distributor does little more than filter out solid crud. The injectors on the steam locomotive do not take antifreeze well and get all fouled up. Also there were times when the local distributors would not show up or get lost and be in a different town to where they were needed. The UP now goes to one source in Iowa that guarantees their oil to be pure. They contract a guy out of Wisconsin with a tanker truck to fill up at the distributor in Iowa and drive to wherever the locomotives are running to refill them. One load in his tanker will fill the tender fuel bunker three times and then he has to drive back to Iowa to get another load. This system works for most of the places they take the locomotives except for way out west in California. They have to hire another tanker to meet the driver in Salt Lake to transfer the load so he can go back to Iowa and get another load while the second guy goes out and fuels the locomotive.
I'm somewhat surprised that UP is going to tackle this- for a while the word was that it was too big, had to be converted to oil, fewer places to turn it around, etc. etc. etc. Not that I'm against such a move, just surprised. If this pans out, I'm gonna have to play hooky from work and drive up to Cheyenne and Sherman Hill. As for moving these beasts around tight curves, I'm sure UP (and BNSF) has someone observing the move of the Big Boy from Fair Park in Dallas up to Frisco and the new MAR site.
I heard they are not going to bring 3985 back to life. UP Steam is going to salvage her for parts. Any truth to this?
In what condition is 3985? She was just freshly shopped, summer of 2010. Unless something went badly wrong, I'm not certain why they'd part this loco out?
The last time I seen her she had no cab, her boiler jacketing was removed, and her tender was out side. That was like 6 months ago. And a freind of mine just called me to tell that tid bit of information. So I am trying to find out if there any truth to this. If that is that is the case I would rather keep the 3985 intacted.
According to 3985's Wikipedia page, the UP steam crew has stated she's on the back burner while they start work on the big boy and probably won't be doing excursion runs till 2016. She's been in the shop a while now.
I read that back in the day, Union Pacific DID convert a Big Boy, #4005, to oil burning; but it wasn't successful (single burner causing uneven heating in the firebox) and #4005 was quickly reverted back to coal burning.
Any idea as to why? She was shopped and completed summer (August) of 2010. Certainly never saw enough miles to need more work- Unless something went bad.
