Steam & Excursion > The Original Big Boy

The original Big Boy, UP's 4-8-8-4 #4000, at Alco. August 1941. Dmitri Kessel photo, for Life magazine.

Don Strack



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/17 11:26 by donstrack.

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“BIG BOY”, IN CHALK ON SMOKEBOX DOOR..
V FOR VICTORY..

What a dramatic pic...
Where the blue prints come to life in 3D...

Talk about PERFECT TIMING...
Pearl Harbor attack was 4 months in the future....
( I was born August, 1940, to boot—- just down the Hudson, on Manhattan...)


W.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/17 12:47 by wcamp1472.

31 pics here ............... https://www.facebook.com/pg/Radio.WW2/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1989455917967061

3) asbestos (white) installation, on the boiler; note the dust on the floor-which is the real problem when it becomes airborne



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/17 12:00 by dan.

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wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> “BIG BOY”, IN CHALK ON SMOKEBOX DOOR..
> V FOR VICTORY..
>
> What a dramatic pic...
> Where the blue prints come to life in 3D...
>
> Talk about PERFECT TIMING...
> Pearl Harbor attack was 4 months in the
> future....
> ( I was born August, 1940, to boot—- just down
> the Hudson, on Manhattan...)
>
>
> W.

"V" for Victory,... makes sense now, I never stopped to think what that V was there for, in the first place. I guess at this date in time, the US was partly involved in the war, or showing support for our allies, before Pearl Harbor?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA

Great photo, and interesting details, like no numbers yet on number boards.
And what are those circular marks on front/middle of boiler door, right beneath the horizontal hand rail?

Jim Baker
Riverside, CA



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/17 16:46 by RailRat.

Thank you for posting these photos. They are absolutely awesome photos! Love to see the original big boy at the ALCO factory under construction and steam up. That one should have been saved I think, but glad the others were saved from the torch.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/17 17:00 by Superstock.

RailRat Wrote:
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> Great photo, and interesting details, like no
> numbers yet on number boards.
>

Train number indicators, so the numbers would change although I suspect it ran mostly as X4000, I would guess it left the factory with plain white glass.

JBWX

RailRat Wrote:
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> Great photo, and interesting details, like no
> numbers yet on number boards.
> And what are those circular marks on front/middle
> of boiler door, right beneath the horizontal hand
> rail?

Those are train indicator boards. Since it's still
in the factory, there is no train number to be.

Notice there no numbers in the wings on the headlight.

The tank may be an M3 Stuart...( correction: Gen’l. Grant type)
Probably produced for Lend-Lease , for shipment to England....
Looks like ALCO was preparing for ramped-up production of tanks...for the Gathering Storm...

Tanks were an easy task for loco builders, and the M4 Sherman has a lot of large, one-piece steel castings... Like, the Shermans had a one-piece, cast steel ‘hull’, or base...
Probably about the equivalent of a four-wheel Delta trailer truck, like under a Big Boy...
Shermans were powered by an air-cooled, radial ( aircraft-like) engine...gasoline powered...bitter cold in the winter, sucking cold air right through the crew compartment.

Their fuel storage was a vulnerable point in the Shermans.
When hit in that region, they burst into flames.
The German tank crews called them “Ronsons”...
From the advertising slogan, for cigarette lighters, in America: “RONSON, Lights Every Time !!!!.

The success of the Shermans was in the huge numbers that were produced...the Germans had the precision and the armament, ( but lacked the industrial capacity to produce their tanks in immense quantities) Americans had the Shermans, by the thousands... same was true for the Russian T-34 , a design by an American, eventualiy hired by Stalin to erect a factory and supervise the construction of thousands of T34 tanks.
As the Germans were seiged at St Petersburg, (Leningrad), they were soon surrounded by immense numbers of T34s...
The WHOLE German army in Russia surrendered...Another factor was that German tanks got trapped in the streets of the city, could not maneuver, and were sitting ducks..The T34s could freely roam, as they surrounded the city...

“Numbers” out lasted the precision of the immense German tanks...like the Tiger IIs, etc...
When the individual German tanks ran out of 88mm shells, the smaller tanks moved-in for the kill.
There were more Allied tanks, than the Germans had shells for the 88s...
There were not enough replacements coming from the Third Reich..
[ Patton finished-off the last of the German tanks at Bastogne, Belgium*, — the Battle of the Buige....Lima, Alco and Baldwin were on the front lines carrying the fight to the enemy....we had immense numbers...].
.
The Russians were producing thousands of T34s, and the Amaricans had the thousands of Shermans, as well as immense numbers of fighters, bombers, ships and aitprcraft carriers ..

Loco builders were very versatile...and very efficient at building tanks at an immense daily-rate....as well,as producing huge, finished, castings for Navy ships, and the like ...

V,
Indeed !!

W.

*Thanks to a wise reader, I changed Bastogne’s country from ‘France’ ( wrong), to Belgium....
“Nuts!”

As info, Russian T34 (var) total production was approx 84,070 units, & Shermans, produced in the US, approx 49, 234...



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 12/10/17 11:59 by wcamp1472.

I agree -- that is a stunning photo!! The class
locomotive. Talk about GRAVITAS!! Big boys had
that is SPADES!! Whbo wouldn't fall under their
spell??

and Wes -- your writing is incredible! We here
at Trainorders are VERY fortunate you joined and
that you post so often and share such very important
and very interesting information, all presented with
super skill. Thank you.

And I learn something new from every post you write.

And Alco and the UP (including Otto Jabelman) sure knew
what they were doing. Wow......

Great find Don, thanks for posting.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

RailRat Wrote:
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> Great photo, and interesting details, like no
> numbers yet on number boards.

Since the Harriman Common Standard era, Union Pacific was careful how they spent their money. When placing locomotive orders UP specifically excluded many standard items, like numbers for the number boards, from their order. It was beneficial for both the builder, who did not have to acquire small quantities of UP standard items, and for UP since they would order larger quantities of Common Standard items at lower costs from their chosen manufacturers. Many Common Standard items like headlamps and whistles were purchased by UP from their component vendors and sent to the builder for installation. In that way UP saved through quantity purchasing and were sure those items and many more were completely interchangeable, and met their standards. The UP stores department therefore had a more limited quantity of common replacement parts as opposed to thousands of similar but not completely interchangeable components.
New locomotives were typically delivered dead in train thus there was no need for many items, like number inserts, to be on the loco from the builder. Once on UP's property there were a few of days of inspection and setup when all standard items were added prior to service.

Tank pictured is a General Grant. Astonishing to see it in that context. d

Dpudave...

Thanks for the correction on the name of early type of tank...
Found good references on Wikipedia...

Wes C.

Holy WOW - the 4000 original photos! Keen!

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> Dpudave...
>
> Thanks for the correction on the name of early
> type of tank...
> Found good references on Wikipedia...
>
> Wes C.

I was surprised to read in some accounts of the war from the German side that they considered the T-34 to be a superior design to anything they had, at least early in the war. Now back to our regularly scheduled program about trains.

JBWX

I sincerely hope those pictures and any others from that historic moment have found a place somewhere in a history document. Those are truly a marked chapter in the history of our great country. I was but eight years old at that time. "GOD BLESS AMERICA" as sung by Kate Smith.

Jim
Hatboro, PA

donstrack Wrote:
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> The original Big Boy, UP's 4-8-8-4 #4000, at Alco.
> August 1941. Dmitri Kessel photo, for Life
> magazine.
>
> Don Strack


What an amazing photo. Never seen it before. Since the locomotive is not painted, it looks like the first time it was steamed up to check for leaks, etc. Even the 4000 number plate on the pilot appears not to be painted! I wonder where the UP shield number plate for the 4000 is today!

I also find it curious that the front of this locomotive was marked with a "V" (apparently as in "V for Victory) several months before the U.S. entered the war. Was the 'V for Victory' a slogan in common use in the United States before Pearl Harbor? Given the presence of the Stuart tanks in production at Alco apparently the same time as the first UP Big Boy order was being built, the War was obviously on peoples' minds there.

Scott Griggs
Louisville, KY

wcamp1472 Wrote:
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> The success of the Shermans was in the huge
> numbers that were produced...the Germans had the
> precision ....

I caught this talk about the Sherman on C-Span3 a few weeks ago:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?433629-2/design-history-m4-sherman-tank-world-war-ii

Anyone interested in tanks should listened to it. The presenter destroyed a lot of the conventional wisdom about the Sherman. I was shocked to find out that the Germans adjusted parts to fit in their tanks when manufactured, but the Americans produced parts to strict tolerances so they had no problems with fit and could quickly do field repairs involving replacing components.

> I also find it curious that the front of this
> locomotive was marked with a "V" (apparently as in
> "V for Victory) several months before the U.S.
> entered the war. Was the 'V for Victory' a slogan
> in common use in the United States before Pearl
> Harbor? Given the presence of the Stuart tanks in
> production at Alco apparently the same time as the
> first UP Big Boy order was being built, the War
> was obviously on peoples' minds there.
>
> Scott Griggs
> Louisville, KY

Winston Churchill first flashed the "V for Victory" sign on July 19, 1941, so it probably was showing support for the Brit's. Maybe the tanks were even being built for Great Britain as part of the Lend-Lease Program as wcamp1472 suggested.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/11/17 16:13 by ts1457.