Steam Trains

[Lyle b]

Hey , fist time posting a thread but had a fun question to get you thinking if interested . Just finished watching some youtube clips on a steamtrain called the 4014 big boy , huge train of immence power and presance , had me smileing from ear to ear as i watched this beast come to life and to live again on the rails of the union pacific railway . Started wondering what it would be like to be the driver and what pipe and tobacco i would be smokeing while doing so . Think for me i would be toking on my little bent dr plumb filled with erinmore flake while chugging down the line he he , just a thort .

 

[leafsmoker]

I went and saw the big boy in West chicago when it was here. Great to see such a massive train.

 

[Lyle b]

I went and saw the big boy in West chicago when it was here. Great to see such a massive train.

Hey leafsmoker , yea that would of been an amazing day , heard sumone say once , is the closest thing to a liveing thing that man has ever made from steel , nuts and bolts , i recon he was right .

 

[danimalia]

That is one big boy!

I love taking trains when traveling. It's a great way to get around. I took a train from Seattle to Vancouver, BC one time and most of the ride was right along the pacific coast. Wonderful. So the idea of getting to drive a train, especially if I could smoke while doing it, sounds like a great way to make a living to me.

 

[Mr.Mike]

I live in Northeast Pennsylvania very close to Scranton ("Steamtown") There is a very rich history involving trains and coal mining here. Scranton has a train museum and there is a big boy there but it isn't operational. I believe they only made 14 and only two survived, the one and only operational one being on the west coast.

 

[Lyle b]

That is one big boy!

I love taking trains when traveling. It's a great way to get around. I took a train from Seattle to Vancouver, BC one time and most of the ride was right along the pacific coast. Wonderful. So the idea of getting to drive a train, especially if I could smoke while doing it, sounds like a great way to make a living to me.

Yea theres something different about them .

I live in Northeast Pennsylvania very close to Scranton ("Steamtown") There is a very rich history involving trains and coal mining here. Scranton has a train museum and there is a big boy there but it isn't operational. I believe they only made 14 and only two survived, the one and only operational one being on the west coast.

Hey yea will have to make scranton first stop if i ever get over there ,looked it up and very pretty part of the country , we dont have the same sort of rail history here worse luck but my father did happen to work in a coal mine many years ago, that still kept and fed the last of the ponys used to help mine which always spun me out abit , would love to visit somewhere like scranton with the history being kept alive like that .

 

[Lyle b]

I went and saw the big boy in West chicago when it was here. Great to see such a massive train.

That would of been exciting, i think its just so good to have people so passionate and proud to put the time and effort into keeping that sorta history alive and steaming down the line .

 

[balkisobrains]

Also fun to watch are plow trains, & Diesel/Electrics with runaway turbos at night.

 

[mso489]

A railroad buff friend, from a railroading family, commented to me that the mechanical engineering developed for the design and manufacturer of steam locomotives was and remains the highest level of that discipline, comparable maybe to the design that goes into super computers and/or artificial intelligence today, and still a source of mechanical engineering knowhow. I'm not an engineering guy, but I think he knew his stuff.

 

[balkisobrains]

There are some good restoration videos out there, I watched one where they were doing some major work on the frame, among everything else that was getting restored, & it was pretty crazy.

 

[Mr.Mike]

I think the guy at the train museum in Scranton said it would cost over 5 million to get the big boy operational. Apparently, the engineering is insanely complicated and very few people are capable of rebuilding them.

 

[mso489]

It's a little like the question, can we still build a moon rocket? Maybe.

 

[Lyle b]

Also fun to watch are plow trains, & Diesel/Electrics with runaway turbos at night.

Hey ya cool , will look that up , found a good one last night about a train in England called Torndo and getting it up to 100mph , well worth a watch , made me smile ☺

 

[Lyle b]

I think the guy at the train museum in Scranton said it would cost over 5 million to get the big boy operational. Apparently, the engineering is insanely complicated and very few people are capable of rebuilding them.

Hey yea would recon its a dying art but if i ever won lotto ......

 

[Lyle b]

There are some good restoration videos out there, I watched one where they were doing some major work on the frame, among everything else that was getting restored, & it was pretty crazy.

Hey yea they are amazing pieces of engineering, would be even more amazing to be involved in a resto , i would even settle for broom boy on the floor trying not to get in the way as i stand around gawking in awe .