Steam Locomotives

This locomotive was built in 1903 by American Locomotive Company as a 2-8-0 Consolidation type. It was originally owned by Chicago Union Transfer Railway and numbered 100. It was sold to Illinois Central Railroad Company in 1904 and renumbered 641. The railroad, which dated back to 1851, operated 4,265 miles of track between Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana. This locomotive pulled heavy freight in Tennessee and "must have seen hard service, for reportedly the Illinois Central rebuilt it in 1918, modernizing it with a superheater, and possibly replacing the boiler and firebox".

In 1943 it was renumber 790 and remained in service until it was replaced by diesel-electric locomotives and put into storage, "the railroad nevertheless had to fire No. 790 up in the spring to assist Illinois Central trains through track inundated by flood waters near Cedar Rapids, because diesel-electric locomotives with their electric motors shorted out in any water, whereas even the bottom of the firebox in a steam locomotive was much higher above the rail, hence above flood waters." It was sold to Louis S. Keller of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1959 who had hoped to use it for excursions. It was used for "flood duty" in April 1965 at the Clinton Corn Processing Company "where it plowed through overflow from the Mississippi River." Later that year it was sold to David de Camp who planned to use it in the area of Lake Placid, New York. The plans were not met and it was sold to F. Nelson Blount in January 1966.

The only surviving locomotive of the Chicago Union Transfer Railway, No. 790 is the only Illinois Central 2-8-0 Consolidation type of its class to survive. "About 146 standard gauge 2-8-0s survive in the United States, including Illinois Central No. 790". The Steamtown National Historic Site retained this locomotive on the suggestion of the Steamtown Special History Study.

Wikipedia

The Union Pacific Big Boy is a type of simple articulated 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive manufactured by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue service until 1962.

The 25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul freight over the Wasatch Range between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming. In the late 1940s, they were reassigned to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they hauled freight over Sherman Hill to Laramie, Wyoming. They were the only locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: four-wheel leading truck for stability entering curves, two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel trailing truck to support the large firebox.

The 4-8-8-4 class series, originally rumored to be called the "Wasatch", after the Wasatch Mountains, acquired its nickname after an unknown ALCO worker scrawled "Big Boy" in chalk on the front of No. 4000's smokebox door, then under construction as the first of its class.

The Big Boys were articulated, like the Mallet locomotive design, although lacking the compounding of the Mallet. They were built with a wide margin of reliability and safety, and normally operated well below 60 miles per hour in freight service. Peak drawbar horsepower was reached at about 41 mph. The maximum drawbar pull measured during 1943 tests was 138,200 lbf while starting a train.

Today, eight Big Boys survive, with most on static display at museums across the United States. One of them, No. 4014, was re-acquired by Union Pacific, and between 2014 and 2019 was rebuilt to operating condition for the 150th anniversary of the first transcontinental railroad. It thus regained the title as the largest and most powerful operational steam locomotive in the world.

Wikipedia