Steam & Excursion > Original Big Boy delivery

Recently somebody asked about the delivery route for the Big Boy from ALCO to the UP. In a box of stuff from a retired NKP/NYC machinist in the Cleveland area, I found a newspaper clipping as follows: CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER, SEPT. 3, 1941 - WORLD'S LARGEST LOCOMOTIVE STOPS IN COLLINGWOOD YARDS. A photo shows UP 4000 and the text states that it stopped ...."for six hours in the Collinwood shops of the NYCS. ...It was bound for Cheyenne, Wyo". A separate clipping , unknown if it was the PLAIN DEALER, shows the opposite side of the 4000, with 7 people looking the locomotive over. The text references it as one of 20 engines- Collinwood yards - "for a grease job.". Then it will move on to its destination, "Avery, Neb."

I will forward scans of the two newspaper clippings free to anyone that PM's me.

I wonder if they all went via NYC or if some might have gone D&H/Erie? Given their size and the Belden Hill tunnel, maybe not . . .

I suspect they were delivered over the NYC. I saw a newspaper article and photo of one of the Big Boys in Joliet yard. So that sort of helps us to believe that the NYC delivered the Big Boys to the EJ&E thru Joliet (around Chicago proper avoiding weight loading on bridges, etc.) up to the CNW and on west to the UP in Council Bluffs. Anyway with that which I have seen leads me to believe that.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

D&H rumor mill had held for years that at least a few were delivered D&H/Erie. Both were built as 6-foot gauge RRs so I doubt that clearance issues were a factor. To this very day, lots of high/wide/heavy loads take this route specifically because of good clearances. When Steamtown moved to Scranton, their Big Boy went down the D&H along with everything else.

I'll check on the D&H Yahoo group and see if anybody has real info, beyond scuttlebutt.

All the donated Big Boys were delivered in the 60's, I really don't know why the routing is such a mystery. But It's not at all clear about how most of them got to where they are now. 4018 went to Dallas, but I've never got an answer about what route it travelled. The old Guys at Emporia said it came through there on the Santa Fe, but I've never seen proof of that, and they may have confused it with something else. Years ago in Trains, I remember seeing a picture of the one at Steamtown, being re-located from Bellows Falls,VT. to Scranton, PA. The photo showed it being pulled across a bridge somewhere.

Hello! Is it possible that I could get a copy of the newspaper scans? Your consideration would be appreciated.

Posted from iPhone

Pix of the Bellows Falls-Scranton move for Steamtown appeared a few months after the movement in Railpace. You could check their back issues files.

Weather for the D&H portion of the move was god-awful, but there are pix out there. I was in Montana at the time, so I don't have any.

Winton248 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello! Is it possible that I could get a copy of
> the newspaper scans? Your consideration would be
> appreciated.
>
> Posted from iPhone


"I will forward scans of the two newspaper clippings free to anyone that PM's me."

march_hare Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Pix of the Bellows Falls-Scranton move for
> Steamtown appeared a few months after the movement
> in Railpace. You could check their back issues
> files.
>
> Weather for the D&H portion of the move was
> god-awful, but there are pix out there. I was in
> Montana at the time, so I don't have any.

I chased the Oneonta - Binghamton movement and I recall the weather as being a nice fall day. Maybe memory is not so good but I got a few nice shots. Slide film that I do not think has been digitized. They stopped for a photo shoot at the Tunnel. Us fans wanted them to make a cut to pose the Big Boy nose out of the bore but the Trainmaster said, ""no cuts". Hey, had to ask !

If I find any that were scanned I'll post.

My neighbor who is now 94 years old says he has a picture he took of one Big Boy that came thru northern Illinois via the Milwaukee Road heading east when they were retired. Says they stopped at the old station in town and lit a tire fire in firebox so as to have some black smoke emitting from the stacks. I've repeatedly asked him over the years to see that pic but alas he can't find it.