Happy 1st day of December! Only 23 more shopping days till Christmas! 😁 It's Steamy Sunday here on the Blog as well. Today's image is another of when the Union Pacific Big Boy 4014 locomotive came through our area on it's way home to Cheyenne Wyoming. The Big Boy is the largest currently operating steam locomotive in the US with a wheel arrangement of 4-8-8-4. It's frame is articulated to allow it to navigate curves since it is so long. The train was running quite late so by the time it made it to where I was the sun was getting pretty low in the sky so in this picture it was heading into the sun as it passed by me. This image shows the 2nd water tender that it has with it because in current times water isn't as available as back in the days of steam. The crew usually has to make arrangements with towns and/or fire departments to fill up with water during it's travels.
Never thought about the need to articulate a locomotive. Looks like a lot of wheels under the tenders
ReplyDeleteSeveral of the really large ones were articulated. Yes, that tender is holding 25,000 gallons of water plus fuel oil so pretty heavy.
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