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THE BIG ENGINE THAT DID

Most people remember the story of “The Little Engine That Could.” But few beyond diehard railroad or steam engine buffs could tell the tale of Big Boy – the world’s largest steam engine that could and did haul enormous loads of precious cargo for the mighty Union Pacific Railroad more than half a century ago.

The Big Boy was the brainchild of UP and was developed for the company by Alco Locomotive Works of Scranton, PA, in 1941. Scranton, of course, is now more famously known as the home of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company’s most notorious branch office, featuring Michael, Dwight, Pam and that whole crazy gang.

However, back in the 1930s when rail was king, working at Alco was probably a little like working at Microsoft today and Scranton was kind of like Seattle, but without lattes. Maybe.

Even though there wasn’t much serious competition in the commercial transportation arena at the time, Union Pacific was looking for ways to improve their profits, which must have already been formidable, when you think about it. After all, the biggest plane could probably only haul about a crate of apples at a time and would be up and down, doing loopty-loops and taking forever to get from , say, Oregon to Atlanta. And trucks weren’t much better, with big balloon-y tires, maximum speeds of about 40 mph, and no freeways or turnpikes available. No, if you needed to move something any significant distance, you pretty much had to rely on railroads.

The steam engines were chugging right along and doing a bang up job of this, except for some sketchy areas between Wyoming and Utah. They were pulling gazillion-pound loads across the country, but even the most powerful locomotives would inevitably run into trouble on Sherman Hill in Wyoming, and along the Wasatch Mountain Range in Utah.

Depending on the size of the engine and its load, some trains had to add as many as nine or ten extra engines in the trouble spots just to push the trains over the long uphill grades. Now, this was actually a pretty cushy job for the guys who ran the extra engines. Union Pacific or whoever was using them had to pay these guys to sit around and play cards and eat donuts, waiting for a big train to come by that needed a push. They’d get that train through, then lollygag around waiting for the next train to roll up that needed a hand. You can understand why management wasn’t happy with the setup.

So UP and Alco commissioned Otto Jabelman to come up with a new design for an engine that could manage Sherman Hill and the Wasatch without assistance. Jabelman studied the Challengers, which at the time were the largest and most powerful engines around, and found that by increasing the firebox, lengthening the boiler, adding four driving wheels and reducing the size of the driving wheels, an even more powerful engine could be built.

They called the new machine the Big Boy, building 25 of the engines exclusively for Union Pacific between 1941 and 1944. These were the world’s largest steam locomotives, measuring 132 feet long and weighing 1.2 million pounds. A Big Boy could generate over 6,290 drawbar horsepower and were the only locomotives to have a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement. They were designed to pull a 3,600 short ton (3,300 t) over the long 1.15% grade in Utah. Trial and error eventually proved that the Big Boy could pull 4,450 short tons unassisted up the Wasatch grade!

It’s said that during World War II, German agents filed reports that the US had giant steam engines moving trains full of vital war materials across the continent, but their superiors in Berlin deemed it “impossible.” The Big Boys actually did make a big contribution in the war effort and were repeatedly cited for their performance in that difficult time.

In more peaceful times, the Big Boys were busiest from July through November, peak season for shuttling produce from coast to coast. The massively heavy Pacific Fruit Express Reefers, or “red balls,” were pulled by Big Boys primarily along the troublesome stretch between Ogden, UT and Cheyenne, WY. It might be fun to speculate on why they were called “red balls,” but we’re running out of space.

The Big Boys ruled the rails until the efficiency of diesel engines eventually overwhelmed steam. Steam engines were just as powerful, and sometimes even faster than diesel, but the combination of their huge appetite for fuel and water plus labor-intensive maintenance finally made the diesel locomotive the more economical choice. The last Big Boy was taken out of service in 1957, and just eight remain today on display in museums across the country.