Richard
I dont think anyone is as good a position to talk about what it would take to get 4023 off her podium and back to live track as John Rimmarsch and Mr Janssen, and this is a discussion forum where everyones views are perfectly valid, so telling people who have been intimately involved with the steam program and restoration in all its forms to stop waxing or being ridiculous isnt particularly polite.
I find this discussion fascinating and have learnt much that i knew nothing about....now back to getting the UP Turbine from Ogden.......

Mike Pannell

Full respect to to the gentlemen who did the cosmetic, really. But have you been to the monument? Please consider, what is the message a railroad like U.P. is trying to convey by running a Big Boy? It isn't to retrieve the least accessible of the survivors.
The turbine in Ogden is a different story altogether. I'd love to see one run, but if memory serves, I think the guts were pulled from that locomotive.

If my memory serves correctly, I remember seeing photos of the big move fo 4023 and noticed that the drawbar had been torched.

I know one can be made but I was wondering why it was torched at all?

Just curious and not trying to start a flame war,

JD Johnson, Morehead and North Fork Railroad Historian

John and I were there at the Grand Opening with Mr. Kenefick.

The UP steam crew could not practically get the drawbar pin out for the road transport mover.

We did the cosmetic back from the podium (under construction) at the Omaha Botanical Garden.

Let's have a preservation reality check:

These locomotives were never designed to be stored outside, have been outside for decades, and will cosmetically degrade to their previous state or worse in about the period of time you would depreciate a typical piece of new equipment built out of sheetmetal. We are now 7(?) years past the job. If we had sanded and painted a WWII military truck that had sat outside for 30 years and then we parked it out in a humid environment where you get bleaching hot sun, rain storm, dust storm, hail storm, snow storm, repeat, how long would you expect it to look good for? How are you going to it on that podium cost effectively next time, especially when you need to replace all the jacketing and rebuild the cab - in a botanical garden where ground level is +40 ft with a soft side-hill below?

The only place a piece of equipment is going to store well cosmetically in is an enclosed, climate controlled environment. Anything else is not preservation, and efforts are just to buy time. Baldwin 60,000 looks pretty nice.

The Botanical Gardens got their scale Mt. Fuji out of the deal. They are very nice people, but not train people.

One would therefore surmise that removal of the rusting equipment from the gardens is a sunk cost, it is just a matter of when. I would be happy to work with WRC on that job, as we could remove it as John and I remarked, and then put the best Big Boy on Ebay for scrap value plus $250K reserve sitting on live rails, with an attractively-priced adder for running condition and have had a lot of fun doing it.

As for tenders, I would look at what the 3800's and first-series 800's used. The Centipede tenders are nice for high speed, but I think these would be much more practical in the current operating environment.

Lets please remember that this topic is all speculation. Nothing Else. I am only a railfan with a interest in the UP steam program. I am enjoying the discussion and learning just like everyone else. So please keep it civil. Those with differing views should be polite when responding or possibily consider not responding if he/she has nothing constructive to add to this discussion.

As for the turbines. I would like to see one run as well. However GE removed the turbine power plants, generators, and traction motors when the locos were sold for scrap. None of the turbine locomotives survive with the turbines, generators, traction motors in place. This is only a rumor though as no official answer to the question regarding the tubines has been forth coming to date. The noise and pollution these locomotives generate would make it almost impossible to restore and operate one on a passenger excursion. Then who could afford the cost of the fuel for a trip with one of these locomotives that had a reputation for burning a massive amount of fuel in a very short time? A turbine would make 4023 and 6900 look like childs play in comparison. Although all the problems could be overcome if one really wanted to do so. Anyone have an idea why GE removed the power plants? Did they go into the Mississippi dredges?

Robert

Right. Why I like RAILBASTARD better. Oh, sorry- another differing opinion.

You take my previous post and twist it all up into something I did not say. Everyone is entitle to their own views. Both positive and negative. That is not the problem. The problem is the derogatory ways people tend to post in response to someone's inquiry.

If you feel so strongly about doing something a certain way thats fine. Let someone else share their views and opinions without being bashed over the head for doing so.

Robert

I don't get it either...it's up the the UP and whichever owner to determine which gets overhauled, and the UP and the mystery third party to determine whether any get overhauled. Nobody else's opinion matters. Having one is like having an appendix, useless but liable to cause trouble when it becomes evident. I don't care which...or even if it happens knowing the outcome of the whole idea is in the best most knowledgeable hands in the country. No skin of mine in the game or dog in the fight.

Can't we each better spend the energy and mental resources working out ways to make things we do control succeed?

dave

I think openly discussing it is a benefit because some details may come out that no one knows otherwise.

The 4-8-0's in Roanoke sat in the weather for over 50 years yet, anyone with the gustow and elbow grease you could get one running, the one now in Portsmouth looks fab.

so restoring a big boy is certainly a good probability.

Really, operating the engine is more wear and tear which is why you have the timely flue/boiler works.

Yes I know the weather effects.

I'm more than pretty sure that the only people whose opinions actually matter - the UP steam program and their associates - already know many more details than the relatively less informed people posting here are even aware exist. This is nothing but noise.

dave

Can't imagine why Doug didn't want to be a moderator anymore...

Heh. Good one!
Frankly, I don't understand why people get so annoyed at threads like this where people muse on the potential reality behind either a known future event or a rumor of one. The only difference between the past and now is that today, all that conjecture is written down.
I think it's better this way, because you don't have a group of people all talking at once and nobody listening, as well as people scattered around who might actually have more to add than just a cluster of fans in one town talking after slide night at the local NRHS meeting.
A possible credible rumor comes out that a UP 4000 might be put back into steam, the most plausible rumor of such since the Dallas 'movie' restoration came and went years ago. Why has there been such an uproar here over the implications of the rumor?

A possible problem with rumors and conjecture is when some unsuspecting person does a Google search and stumbles upon this site. A site labeled "Railway Preservation News" would lead an outsider to believe what he or she reads is fact.

Several reasons:
1) Idealistic, optimistic, overzealous "youngsters" (or salesmen) get overzealous, skip over words "possible," "under consideration" and "feasibility" and dive straight into the proverbial "deep end of the pool" thinking it's GOING to happen;
2) the cynical older guys like me who have seen/heard all this kind of stuff before either say "naah, it'll never happen" or raise serious questions with no easy answers about feasibility, practicality, condition, etc.
3) Category 1 accuses Category 2 of being "nattering nabobs of negativity" and Cat. 2 accuses Cat. 1 of unrealistic enthusiasm.

After several years and rounds of this blather and heartbreak repeated for anything from a PRR I1 to a UP gas-turbine to new steam locomotives to replace diesels to a "Big Boy" movie project to a Yellow Ribbon Express to a Santa Fe Hudson, Category 2 dies off, and the former Category Ones replaces them as Twos.

Sorry, but some of us don't see this rumor as the least bit "credible" until we see UP trucks parked outside a Big Boy, with panel track being laid from a UP flat car with a UP burro crane, and contractors pumping oil and grease into the right places....

I tend to think people get bent out of shape on thereads like this is that such conjecture, whether good or bad, is probably better sutied for the other boards, aimed more toward the enthusiast market, rather than those working in preservation.

RYPN used to be a great source for those involved in actual preservation activities, not those conjecturing about potential preservation actions by third parties unknown to us, or who do not participate on the board. In some ways, the board still serves a useful purpose, such as the recent discussion on mahagony doors for a SOU coach.

Those who have been here for a while, and who are active in preservation tend to cringe when this month's new person asks "Hey, is there an update about XXXXY Ralway locomotive #97?" Or "Would it be kewl if UP restored another DD40AX, and ran it in MU with a turbine and a Big Boy! Trainz rule!"

There is a time and place for everything. People like Mr. Lathrop are of the opinion that this forum isn't the time, nor the place for such baseless, and uninformed speculation. I tend to agree.

David Wilkins
Grumpy Young Man, MO