The recently restored 4-8-4 + 4-8-4 Beyer-Garratt 6029 with the AHRS in Canberra, Australia has now been fitted with a "Big Boy" whistle.

The loco hauled a 1400 ton freight train out of the yard in Canberra a couple of weeks ago.

The loco was retired by the NSWGR in 1972. It ran in preservation from 1975 to 1981 when sidelined by boiler problems. In 1983 a spare boiler was recovered from a saw mill. It took until 2007 for a restoration movement to take hold. Loco made it's first revenue run this past February.

TH

A word of caution:

"UP Big Boy steam whistles" are typically one of the biggest "charades" game going in high-priced railwayana collecting. The fact is that the whistle in question was designed and made by Hancock Inspirator Co. (later taken over by Manning, Maxwell, & Moore and distributed under that name) as a standardized long-bell three-chime designed for operation on superheated steam at 250 psi and greater. It was carried on a multitude of UP steamers, including Challengers, Northerns, and other steamers besides the "Big Boy" just on UP alone, as well as on other railroads.

Edward A. Fagen, author of the definitive steam whistle treatise The Engine's Moan and editor for years of Horn & Whistle Magazine, stated to me a quarter century ago, even long before the Internet ramped up the market for such things and the steam whistle collectors' fraternity was largely secretive and "underground": "There were 25 UP Big Boys. Eight are preserved, with or without original whistles. That means there are approximately twenty or so Hancock long-bells that actually came off of Big Boys that could be in collectors' hands, not counting whistles swapped by the railroad for maintenance. I've seen or heard of at least eighty of them." The obvious implication is that too many people with a Hancock long-bell three-chime are, either knowingly or innocently, passing off a simple whistle of the right type as "it came off a UP Big Boy" just to claim bragging rights or top dollar price. I suspect the number today might be more like 200. (The exact same syndrome affects the Leslie A200-156 air horn used on PRR GG1's--which was also used on other locos, ships, tugboats, etc.)

The odds are extremely high that unless a noted collector from the States flew down himself with a whistle or someone there in Aussie or Kiwi Land undertook to buy one and have it shipped over, the whistle on 6029 is of the exact same type from the same shop, but probably not a whistle that was actually ON a UP "Big Boy."

Does that matter? Not really, unless you're into fetishising and worshipping "idols" and relics from your chosen "saints."

(On the other hand, I'd really like to see what would happen if a collector from Japan, China, South Africa, Germany, or wherever got a top bid on a "holy grail" of American railroadiana such as this and wanted it shipped to them. Tell the Reading fanboys an authentic Reading G3 steam whistle has been sold to someone in Qatar, and watch heads explode in furious indignation.....)

And yet, even when faced with this truth, anyone with a "Big Boy" whistle will tell you you're right... but still, they know that they have a real one.

If everyone who claims to have been at Woodstock were really there, there would have been 7 million people in the mud.

My friends in Australia may take exception to their county being referred to as "kiwi land." That's a term of endearment for folks from New Zealand!

On the other hand, it will be interesting to know how the folks in Oz feel about that big ol' steamboat whistle. After all, they are mostly descendants of the Brits of peanut whistle fame, and whistle signals in their land are generally comprised of a blast to signal virtually everything!

Can't the Rypn'ers say anything positive about this news?

Trevor did put Big Boy in quotes, saying it is a "Big Boy" whistle. That told me it is a Big Boy type whistle, but not necessarily one with real Big Boy DNA in its being.

I have heard about a major collector in New Zealand. A U.S. fellow I've met has traded stuff with him. I ended up battling him at auction for a cabside plate of a NZR KA 4-8-4 steamer years ago. That's what was going on in my head. >;-)

If you remember how many people were at Woodstock, you obviously missed it.

When I got off the plane in New Zealand after many, too many hours of aeronautical cattle car hell, I found a guy with a UP hat in a boiler suit standing on the stairway departing passengers used to escape the airport. He was involved in steam preservation and operation, and apparently there's a decent following of UP and other Yank steam down under. I'm not surprised if a Kiwi someplace has some good hardware......

But Oz........ there's some great railroading. I have memories of a locomotive boiler in a shed of a sawmill in Victoria, but I couldn't tell you how to find it. No steam gauge, water glass, or much else in the way of what we'd expect, but there it was powering the sawmill every day, nobody at all nervous about it.

All in all, the air trip was a minor inconvenience for the experiences gained once there.

dave

To try and keep this on topic:

Trevor,

Looks fantastic! I think its incredible a spare boiler, from a saw mill of all places, was found and installed to get this engine up and running! You guys keep up the good work!

Good point. I couldn't imagine that happening to any US locomotive, especially one that big.
I know plenty of 'spare boiler' shells were made in the steam era and never used (I remember more than a couple documented in Ron Zeil's book, "Twilight of Steam locomotives") and I can only assume most - if not all - got scrapped as well...

Several new, unused Northern Pacific boiler sections became culverts, some of which still exist.

-Hudson

If everyone who claims to have been involved with the Freedom Train really were, it would have run in at least 3 sections just to carry all of them.

While I get your point and agree with the underlying message, it's still not quite the same thing as Woodstock. The Freedom Train constantly rotated people through during 15 months of a cross-country journey. Woodstock lasted only four days in one fixed location.

I should have been more clear. If all of those who claim to have worked ON THE LOCOMOTIVES.

NSWGR 6029 without "Big Boy" whistle but moving right along.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL_kt28O3M8