Digital Steam Era III Class 4000 4-8-8-4 Big Boy

A Replica of a Famous Locomotive Based on UP's largest steam locomotives, and one of the largest ever built, this detailed model features a die cast boiler with loads of applied separate details. The locomotive comes equipped with an mfx digital decoder and a sound system. It also has a powerful motor with a bell-shaped armature and a flywheel, traction tires for extra pulling power and an articulated frame enabling it to negotiate curves as sharp as 14-3/8" 36cm radius. Other features include directional LED headlights, provisions and contacts for adding a smoke unit (#667-11, sold separately), provisions for a front pilot coupler and close coupling between the locomotive and tender. Steam lines are mounted to swing out and back with the cylinders. Figures of a locomotive engineer and fireman for the engineer's cab are included. The locomotive comes in a wooden case. The double heading of locomotives or the use of locomotives in pusher service was cost intensive and used a lot of crews. From the 1940s on, the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) needed an extremely powerful freight locomotive especially for the grades of the Rocky Mountains in order to reduce or eliminate the use of helpers and doubleheaders. The new locomotives had to be capable of relatively high speeds so that long routes could be covered without changing locomotives. Otto Jabelmann, an experienced designer at American Locomotive Company (Alco), developed a gigantic, articulated locomotive that entered the annals of railroad history as the Big Boy and that more than earned its nickname. Twenty-five units of this 132' 10-7/16" 4050cm, 350.2ton, 6,115 horsepower, and 70 mph 112 km/h fast 4-cylinder locomotive steamed through the wide expanses of the USA between 1941 and 1957. The Big Boys had a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement and the equally massive looking tender carried 24-1/2 tons of coal and 24,991 gallons of water. The Big Boy showed its strengths on the notorious grades in the Wastach Mountains and on Sherman Hill (1.14% and 1.55% maximum grade), fulfilling all of the expectations set for it. Six thousand ton freight trains were not rare in everyday operation and an experiment on level terrain showed that Big Boy was capable of pulling a 25,000 ton train on its own. Even on Sherman Hill this immense locomotive could still haul 3,600 tons on its own over this difficult route. With a full load the coal consumption was naturally also gigantic. A stoker automatically fed enough coal from the tender to the 150 square-foot 14 square meter grate in the firebox. No fireman would have been in a position to master this with pure muscle power. By the mid-50s, powerful diesel locomotives were gradually replacing the class 4000 steam locomotives, which had already become legendary, so it's not surprising that a total of 8 Big Boys, unfortunately not operational, have been preserved in museums to remind people of the great past for steam motive power in the USA.