Steam & Excursion > Big Boy question

We've all heard the story about how the UP's 4-8-8-4 got it's "nickname" Big Boy but had the railroad already picked a name for this class and then decided just to use Big Boy? If so, what would this class have been called?

Sorry if this has already appeared in another thread.


john

Wasatch Class...debate will ensue shortly on the correct spelling, I know it but simply can't remember.

Cheers, Dave

I agree...Wasatch.

Hillcrest Wrote:
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> Wasatch Class...debate will ensue shortly on the
> correct spelling, I know it but simply can't
> remember.
>
> Cheers, Dave


It's so nice when you are prescient about flaming....hopefully you'll have time to get your Kevlar and Nomex on!

AJ

Hillcrest Wrote:
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> Wasatch Class...debate will ensue shortly on the
> correct spelling, I know it but simply can't
> remember.
>
> Cheers, Dave

The Mountain Range that the UP's 4000 class locomotives were designed to originally operate in, is spelled "Wahsatch". So take your pick.

Is it not named after the railroad town Wahsatch at the summit of the grade between Ogden and Evanston? The mountain range is spelled as "Wasatch", but the summit railroad town where a water tank still exists is spelled "Wahsatch". The railroad town would be appropriate considering there were quite a few railroad routes over the Wasatch, so naming it after a town on the grade makes it fitting to the UP, not competing railroads.

Maybe this is why the "Big Boy" name stuck, they couldn't decide on the spelling! lol -BMT

F40PHR231 Wrote:
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> Is it not named after the railroad town Wahsatch
> at the summit of the grade between Ogden and
> Evanston? The mountain range is spelled as
> "Wasatch", but the summit railroad town where a
> water tank still exists is spelled "Wahsatch". The
> railroad town would be appropriate considering
> there were quite a few railroad routes over the
> Wasatch, so naming it after a town on the grade
> makes it fitting to the UP, not competing
> railroads.

Looks like the late William W. Kratville spelled the Mountain Range incorrectly on page 7 of his book "BIG BOY".

The name of the Utah mountain range is Wasatch! The Union Pacific named their station at the summit Wahsatch.

Look it up in an Atlas . . . The name for the class under consideration was Wasatch.

I personally think it "looks" better WITHOUT the H.

The topo map calls the mountains Wasatch;
anyone found a map that calls them Wahsatch?

I often wonder how much the Hollywood movie "Danger Lights," which came out just before any of the UP 4000s, but a RR Classic, might have had an effect??? In the scene were the one character says to the other something-or-the-other character about "You've got one of those Big Boys to take out this afternoon!!!" Which was nothing but a Milwaukee Road Pacific or whatever, maybe a Mike?

Then, as the story goes, somebody (nobody knows who) chalked "BIG BOY" on the smokebox of one of the 4000s--if not the 4000 itself?--inside the factory right before/right after completion. Right before final painting.

But I personally think that the HOLLYWOOD Influence from just a few years prior had a DEEP cultural influence on the "Big Boy" nomenclature, pure and simple. [Which could as easily have gone to another class of loco as another, but STUCK with this one, and appropriately so].

timz Wrote:
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> The topo map calls the mountains Wasatch;
> anyone found a map that calls them Wahsatch?

But I like it with the "H"! It makes me say "Wahhhh..." first!

I've also read that Wasatch/Wahsatch was likely to be the moniker, but I thought George Drury put it best in "Guide to North American Steam Locomotives:"

[Drury:]--------------------------
There's no record of other names [besides "Big Boy"] that UP might have come up with. They wouldn't have been as good.
[/Drury]--------------------------

AMEN!

Now it might be because I didn't grow up with them and I'm not American but Wasatch is a far better name in my opinion than Big Boy, Big Boy sounds like a nickname rather than a proper name for a locomotive.

MitchGDRMCo Wrote:
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> Now it might be because I didn't grow up with them
> and I'm not American but Wasatch is a far better
> name in my opinion than Big Boy, Big Boy sounds
> like a nickname rather than a proper name for a
> locomotive.

Excellent observation, and I agree with you. Besides, the working men & women of the UP didn't call them "Big Boys" either. They were know as "4000s", especially the enginemen and mechanical forces that worked on and around them.