Union Pacific Wartime Steam Engine

[David Dunlop]

One of the largest steam locomotives ever built in North America (built in 1941 I believe for Union Pacific) has recently been reaquired by UP and returned to their shops in Nebraska for restoration. The plan is to return it to revenue service once restoration is completed in a few years.

I have posted a photo of one of this series,of engines for reference. Hard to get a true idea of how long this beast is, due to the angle the picture was taken from, but the scale of the people gives a good impression of size overall.

It is officially a 4884 engine with an articulated boiler so it can handle curves. Empty weight is just over 1.25 million pounds, engine and tender combined. The tender can hold 20,000 gallons of water and 25 long tons of coal. Top speed is 80mph and it produces a maximum torque at 10mph of approx. 375,000 lb ft.

Be awesome to see back on the rails.

David

[lynx42]

That's a bit bigger than Australia's biggest non-articulated engine.



H220 ‘Heavy Harry’
Construction of the H-class Locomotive 4-8-4 began at the Victorian Railway’s Newport workshops in 1939. Three sets of frames were manufactured before work was halted due to the outbreak of World War II.
Increased wartime traffic and a shortage of motive power lead the VR to complete the construction of class leader H220 and the locomotive went into service on February 7th 1941.
Nicknamed ‘Heavy Harry’ (or ‘Healthy Hilda’ according to Mr N.C. Harris, then the Chairman of the Victorian Railways Commissioners), H220 had a running weight of 260 ton, 1 cwt (264.2 tonne) and an overall length of 92 ft 5 3/4 in (28.19m). It was the largest non-articulated steam locomotive to run on the railways in Australia.
H220 was removed from the VR register in 1958 after traveling more than 800,000 miles (1.3 million kilometres) and is now displayed at the ARHS museum in Williamstown, Victoria. There are plans to return Harry to steam at some time in the future.

New South Wales railways had Beyer Peacock & Co articulated engines.



.
6029 was built by Beyer Peacock & Co as their Builder's Number 7531 of 1954 as one of the "AD60 class" Beyer-Garratt freight locomotives for the NSWGR. 6029 received a number of modifications during its service life, including Dual Control (DC) and increased cylinder diameter for greater tractive effort ("++") and thus was known as a DC++ modified AD60.
The New South Wales Government Railways introduced the 4-8-4+4-8-4 AD60 Garratt in 1952, built by Beyer, Peacock. The AD60 weighed 265 tonnes, with a 16-tonne axle loading. As delivered, it developed a tractive effort of 60,000 lbf (270 kN)), not as powerful as the South African Railways GMA/M 4-8-2+2-8-4 Garratts of 1954, which developed a tractive effort of 60,700 lbf (270 kN).[9] Following modifications in 1958 to thirty AD60s, their tractive effort was increased to 63,016 lbf (280.31 kN). These locomotives remained in service until the early 1970's with 6042 the last withdrawn in February 1973.

6029 returned to steam last July after a long restoration. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZWooo8YaK8



Regards Rick

[David Dunlop]

Rick.

Nice looking equipment from out your way.

If anyone ever put together a weekend event of live steam locomotives running around with WW2 aircraft flying about, I would never be able to wipe the grin off my face.

David