Hello everybody!

Seeing as Union Pacific's railtour season has ended for 2019, I thought it would be fun to look back on the life of the locomotive that has kicked up such a fuss this year. Join me as we delve into the history of the Last of the Giants-4014!

Chapter 1: Early days

Union Pacific 4014 was built by the American Locomotive and Car Company (ALCO) in 1941, being delivered to the Union Pacific Railroad in December. The 15th member of the class to be built, it was part of the first order of 20 4000 class engines placed by Union Pacific (a subsequent order for 5 more was placed in 1944, of which preserved example 4023 is a member). It was allocated to Laramie from new and worked heavy coal trains for most of WW2, before settling into routine work for the late 1940s and most of the 1950s.

With the rapid development of diesel traction, which was not only cheaper to run but easier to maintain, UP made the decision to gradually phase the 4000s out. This took place between 1954 and 1962. Although 4014 was officially on the books until 1961, it dropped its fire for the last time in revenue earning service on July 21st, 1959, the penultimate member of the class to do so.

(Note: this is not an image of its last train. That was an overnight working.)

Chapter 2: Retirement

4014 was put into storage at Cheyenne, Wyoming alongside several other members of the class, the piston heads and slidebars being temporarily removed as part of this process (unlike the Green River examples, which had the slidebars cut through with a blowtorch). In 1961, the engine was sold to the RailGiants museum in Pomona, California, and reassembled to make the journey there.

This is where things get confusing. According to RailGiant's own website, 4014 was towed as part of a goods train. However, Pentrex and Union Pacific state the engine arrived on the showground under its own power. Photographs of the engine being moved with the piston heads and slidebars removed do exist:

But it is not possible to prove when they were taken, or if the engine was only being towed for a portion of the run. Additionally, another photograph claimed to be of 4014 being towed to Pomona actually shows another member of the class being towed for scrap.

Anyways, the engine arrived at Pomona in 1962, and went on display. The next 52 years were not kind on the engine, as as this photograph from 1999 shows, the engine had begun to deteriorate.

When I visited in 2011, there was a considerable air of neglect hanging around the engine, which was by now in very poor shape. But the winds of change were blowing, and things were set to change.

Chapter 3: Reacquisition

In 1960, the Union Pacific chose to spare one of their FEF-3 locomotives, 844, from the scrapheap and instead chose to restore it for mainline traffic.

(844 in action. Note the Mars Light attached to the top of the smokebox.)

This was followed by 3985, a 3900 class locomotive, in 1981.

(3985 on a passenger stop. This engine has subsequently been withdrawn for overhaul.)

In 2012, Union Pacific purchased 4014 back from Railgiants, and towed the engine to Cheyenne. However, the engine sat in the overhaul queue for two years as maintenance work on 844 had overrun.

(Here, 4014 is exiting the Cheyenne portal of Hermosa tunnel.)

By 2016, work to disassemble the engine had begun under Ed Dickens, the lead engineer at Cheyenne depot. The mammoth job is made clear by these photographs;

In an interview with UK magazine Steam Railway, Dickens commented it was possible to walk from one end of the boiler to the other without ever needing to crouch!

In April 2019, 3 years, $17 million and one conversion to oil firing later, 4014 passed a full steam test at maximum operating pressure of 300psi.

(Skip to 11:08 for the whistle test and the safety valves lifting.)

After approximately 60 years, 4014 was back in traffic.

Chapter 4: Go West!

No sooner had the engine returned to traffic, it was on the move. It and 844 were booked to appear in Ogden for the 150th Anniversary of Golden Spike, and so the two rushed there with an SD70AC for support.

At Ogden station, the two engines participated in a recreation of the Golden Spike ceremony.

(Here, we see the crew let off steam-literally.)

Later, the ceremony was recreated, and the Union Pacific sent the message #Done on their Twitter page. Whilst it was a recreation of the message sent 150 years prior, it more than perfectly summed up the situation with 4014.

Chapter 5: Back and Forth

Later this year, 4014 went on a trip across the UP network (and the BNSF bits where UP has operating rights). It visited 8 states in 25 days, and even battled through heavy snow in November!

The season for 4014 closed earlier this month, with a well-earned rest at Cheyenne.

What the future holds for 4014, nobody knows. I can only hope it remains at the centre of UP's steam operations. Maybe a UK visit is in order.

Note: some more picky readers may object to my use of gender-neutral pronouns, as well as not using the name 'Big Boy'. There are two reasons for this;

1. Steam locomotives are conventionally referred to using female pronouns, like a ship. However, the 4000s are sometimes referred to using male pronouns, which to my ear is just wrong. I have settled on gender-neutral to make a compromise.

2. Although the nickname was in common use, it was never the official name of the class. The logbooks refer to them as 4000s, and therefore so will I.

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When I visited in 2011, there was a considerable air of neglect hanging around the engine, which was by now in very poor shape. But the winds of change were blowing, and things were set to change.

Hate to nitpick on ya Blue but.... that ain't the case for 4014 ^^' It was lovely taken care of from the volunteers of the Rail Giants Museum which put 4014, out of the 8 survivors, the Big Boy in the best condition when Union Pacific did that search for one from December 2012 to July 2013.

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Which says a lot about the state of the others. There's one in St. Louis which is in need of new paint, and 4004 apparently has the best boiler of them.

And look at it! Half the boiler cladding is missing!

There's one in St. Louis which is in need of new paint, and 4004 apparently has the best boiler of them.

And look at it! Half the boiler cladding is missing!

1. About 4006, that was before the locomotive received that cosmetic restoration in late 2013 and early 2014 ^^'

2. The reason why most of that Boiler Jacket (or cladding for you in the UK) was removed was because it contained one thing: Asbestos.

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I haven't been to St. Louis in a while, I'll admit.

Thing is, asbestos is brilliant at retaining heat; UK locos tend to have the cladding kept on when the boiler isn't being worked on.

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Yeah, in fact the most recent visit for of St. Louis in terms of my family has to be when my dad visited it back in 2017 (I think if I'm saying that correctly ^^') when he visited that city for his yearly USITT convention. :)

Okie :P

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It's interesting, given that Britain has more stringent asbestos laws than the US.

Fun fact; 4004 is still in great shape despite being flooded in the 80s. When they drained the engine afterwards, the water removed amounted to a teacup.

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True for you :)

Heh, the recent why 4014 was chosen as opposed to 4004 was because this: 4014's parts weren't used to keep other major steamers running and... what else..... oh yeah: some of 4004's parts were used for, at the time prior to the return of 4014, to keep 844 and 3985 running. (Thankfully not too many though, just some appliances that would make sense to use on those two ^^)

4004 is still in great shape despite being flooded in the 80s

Well prior to 2017-2018, 4004 was missing it's number plate, but thankfully..... in those two years, 4004 underwent a cosmetic restoration as well just like 4006 did a few years prior, which included putting that missing number plate back on the front.

Btw, one other thing:

being delivered to the Union Pacific Railroad in December.

Actually 4014 was delivered to the UP in November of 1941, not December ^^'

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I believe that 844 gained 4014's whistle, though as the video above shows it no longer does, and some of the motion and valve parts on the 3900s and 4000s are the same (given the latter is basically an overgrown version of the former, hence why my brother called them 'Fatboys').

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(given the latter is basically an overgrown version of the former, hence why my brother called them 'Fatboys').

HA! Don't try and tell you brother that there is actually a song from Queen called Fat Bottomed Girls! XD

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On that topic...

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Touché

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Precisely. Pentrex's film (which sadly is no longer available in the UK) contains footage of all 25 members of the class.

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The 14th member of the class to be built

4014 is the 15th member of the class, it started at 4000-4019 for the first batch and 4020-4024 for the latter five.

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Updated.

Cool. How’d they make it oil-firing? They tried for one way back, but the firebox was too big IIRC? Never could find a good answer for that.

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Uneven burning.

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So how’d the get it to burn even this time around?

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Better equipment and an oil-configuree tender, borrowed from 3985.

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Ok thanks.

(I really have no idea what that means, except they got it from 3985)

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3985 has been an oil-burner since 1981.

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Rest assured: It's temporary until 4014's own tender is converted to carrying oil.

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For that, a tank and fuel delivery system need to be installed.

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Basically they actually did a better job at converting 4014 to oil, not sure what UP did to 4005 but it wasn't a very good job.

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Thanks, but I’m looking for how they did it this time so it atomized properly and had even heating

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I've also read that the oil quality wasn't amazing; the Big Boy firebox is designed to run on very bad coal, but a coal burner is not easy to convert to an oil burner.

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I think I have something that will help. A user in a Trains magazine forum posted this;

The conversion was made with a modified Thomas burner, not very different from the arrangement on 3985. There is a comparatively thick flash wall (Austin Barker indicated about 3' although I haven't actually seen it) which positions the backward-firing burner well behind the actual throat plate of the firebox. There is no refractory on the circulators, and in fact any portion of the arch that may have been carried on them has been removed. Interestingly, although I would think this would cause increased 'quench' in the combustion plume I haven't seen any abnormal increase in the need for sanding, or for that matter increased unburnt matter in the exhaust beyond what I'd consider normal hazing at periods of high steam demand and draft.

Oil bunkerage is 6200 gallons, and the fuel is waste motor oil. I have not verified how this fuel is treated before used; normal 'best practice' is to wash it, to separate out some of the additives in commercial motor oil that can cause issues (like ZDDP or other friction modifiers) and any hygroscopic hydraulic oil or antifreeze, and then use centrifugal separators (which are commercially available for this specific purpose and are pretty cost-effective below about 120gph capacity) to remove water from the oil. It is possible that UP outsources its oil delivery to parties that presumably provide good QC in this regard; someone might comment on the companies whose trucks have been observed refuelling 4014 on this trip so far.

Feed was stated (by both Barker and Dickens) to be purely by gravity. I don't think waste motor oil requires extensive heating to flow in cold weather, and certainly doesn't need the careful coil management that, say, 4449 would. I wouldn't be surprised to find some heating arrangement on the locomotive somewhere, considering how low Plains temperatures can get (to say nothing of Chicago!) but don't know yet what the details actually are.

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THANK YOU

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No problem. I didn't understand all the technical jargon, but I'm glad to help.

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I don't think it'd be that hard considering the SP&S had about a 100% oil burning fleet with them getting all their steam engines from Great Northern and Northern Pacific (both of them owned 50% of SP&S). The three largest engines they had were the three E-1 class (NP A-3 4-8-4s), six Z-6 Challengers (NP design) and two Z-8 Challengers (again, NP design) and while all three classes were designed to burn lignite coal, also known as brown coal or rosebud coal, they did fantastic on oil. I really think NP just did a poor man's job on 4005 and took notes from elsewhere for 4014.

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Lignite was also used in the former East Germany. It's why railway pollution was such a problem; steam locomotives belching brown smoke.

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It's why NP was the first to use 4-8-4s in America and 2-8-8-4 Yellowstones.

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Sorry, where? I'm not aware of other countries using 4-8-4s.

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Well there were other countries that used 4-8-4s, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico, Australia, France and Germany (though small in number for those last two) But it is was actually the Irish who had the first 4-8-4s, though they were 4-8-4Ts.

Two in total, the main problem they had was low fuel capacity so instead of ordering more they ordered two 4-8-0s.

So the first 4-8-4s were Irish, though the first major use of them was by the Northern Pacific.

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I'd never known that. I'm not aware of any engines of that wheel arrangement in the rest of the British Isles (although 4-64T was very common, there were 7 2-8-2s, and a pair of 4-8-2s built for the Romney, Hythe, and Dymchurch).

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I believe there were various plans for SG 4-8-2s and 4-8-4s by the LNER and LMS, but obviously those never went off the ground.

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Riddles designed a 2-10-2, but later revised it to 2-10-0 when it emerged the resulting engine would be too heavy. Result; the 9F, Britain's most powerful freight engine.

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I thought it was originally a 2-8-2 design. I know Baldwin was working with the GCR for a 2-10-2 cross compound engine with bogie tender, but WW1 stopped that plan sadly.

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I'll check.

The LNER built a 2-8-0+0-8-2 for Worsborough incline, and the LMS built a few 2-6-0+0-6-2s.