Just saw a teaser on YouTube for a segment Jay Leno did on the Big Boy for his gear head show, apparently now only on YouTube, to go live on September 23.

It's up--some great pacing shots, and mostly pretty correct commentary from Jay Leno.

There's no denying his great enthusiasm for vintage machinery and the history behind it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YMAqqCYe00

Great PR piece for Dickens and the UP steam program. Did anyone else catch the part where the new stainless sleeves for the boiler washout plugs are made from pet food bowls? (Imagining Ed at Pet Smart asking for 15 identical bowls for his "Iron Horse".)

I watch Jay Leno's Garage every week. Always well done and interesting, but I believe this was one of the longest (over 1 hour) and thorough segments he's done. I found it to be a really good mix of technical info, but not so complicated as to not appeal to the masses. The audience of this program is huge and most are car and machinery fans who probably have never given locomotives a second thought. The PR benefit to UP and the overall railway preservation industry should not be underestimated. We need more of this kind of stuff.

[quote="PaulWWoodring"] Did anyone else catch the part where the new stainless sleeves for the boiler washout plugs are made from pet food bowls? /quote]

Ed mentions that at live clinics, starting with the #844 overhaul.

So, safe to say, I believe this will easily be one of the best videos on Jay Leno's Garage's YouTube channel. Since the video was posted on September 23, 2024, it accumulated over 2 MILLION (that's correct) views before the end of New Years, and it is within the top 9% of the videos on the channel. As of this post (1:45 A.M. on January 2nd, 2025), the video has been viewed 2,005,155 times, and, when sorted by views, it is #110 out of the 1,215 videos on the channel.

Will this be Jay's most popular video? I can't say for certain. His most popular video currently is on Batman's Tumbler, and that has at least 20,000,000 views. That being said, it was uploaded at least 11 years ago, and Big Boy wasn't even uploaded 1/3 of a year ago and already has ~1/10 the views as Batman's Tumbler. Do I think Big Boy will be one of Jay's most popular videos? Yes (most definitely), and it already is.

Personally, I loved the video, and I think Jay was most excellent. I think Ed loved being able to talk a little more technical than he normally can, and you could tell that Jay was having the time of his life. Personally, one of my all-time favorite parts was right near the end as Big Boy is whistling off to leave, and you just see that "little boy" smile on Jay's face. I relate to that moment so strongly because that is how I feel whenever I'm around steam. Thank you for doing that video, Jay Leno, and thank you for doing it right.

Everyone is doing that now. We did that on CNR 6167 back in 2016, and I forget where we got the idea from. Maybe CPR 2816?

Also, after vandals smashed the headlight and bulbs on CNR 4803 at the John Street Roundhouse, I stopped at the dollar store and picked up some pet food bowls to replace the damage bulbs.

They were a perfect fit...

Topic drift...

The just-installed muffler on the Eames Automatic Vacuum Brake system being developed and tested at the WW&F is made up of various kitchen pots, with a dog bowl at the bottom.



Both the muffler and the vacuum brakes were tested for the first time on a full train set on 12/31/2024 - everything worked very well.

Yankee ingenuity at its best!

This deserves it's own thread, if not an article - the Eames system isn't familiar to many people.

I am not sure it's "little known" -- it was the direct inspiration for most power train braking in Britain for well over a century.

I agree that it deserves its own thread -- including lots of pictures and description of the work being done on the WW&F.