Union Pacific 3985 Challenger class locomotive

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Union Pacific 3985 or UP 3985 is a four-cylinder simple articulated 4-6-6-4 Challenger-type steam locomotive owned by Union Pacific Railroad. The UP 3985 locomotive was built in 1943 by the American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, New York. It is currently the largest operational steam locomotive in the world.

Articulated means that the front set driving wheels can pivot for rounding curves.
4-6-6-4 refers to the wheels under the engine: 4 under the forward or pilot truck, 6 refers to the 6 forward drivers, 6 refers to the rear drivers and 4 under the trailing truck that supports the firebox and cab. Only the drivers are powered as their name implies. And it came out of Schenectady, just like our Jetcone! Unlike our Jetcone, the locomotive and its tender weigh over a million pounds. While this one burns oil now to help eliminate the hot cinders that can start brush fires, when burning coal they could consume close to an amazing 20 tons of coal an hour, depending on the load and the grade.

This is one of my favorite videos. I think most here enjoy watching machinery work and this is amazing: fire, smoke, water, steam & motion. Those of us who appreciate and admire these engines feel that, when running, they are as close to a living thing as any piece of machinery can be. Watch the pistons power the connecting rods to the driving wheels and just above them the valve gear that ticks back and forth to synchronize the valves with the pistons. Just after 4:20 you can see steam start to escape just forward of the huge piston powering the rear drivers on the left side, then at 4:30 you can see water pour out of the overflow for the water feed system that replenishes water in the boiler from the tender. All of this machinery was what it took to transfer energy from fire to steam to reciprocal motion in the pistons to rotary motion in the wheels. Watching it move at high speed you have to wonder how it can stand up to the stress without flying apart, but it does. Diesel electric locomotives simplified all of this by using electricity to transform the rotation of a generator to the traction motors powering the wheels of the train engine. You can Google steam locomotive parts for definitions & drawings of any terms I have used.

The shape of classic oscillating agitator washer transmissions is the way it is because inside, rotary motion from the motor has to be transformed into back and forth motion, sort of the reverse of the locomotive's task.

The haunting sound of the steam whistle is sweet but spine-chilling music compared to the sound of the air horns on a modern locomotive.

I hope you will enjoy this video.

 
cool video! at certain times in the video,the high-pitched whine of the two steam turbine generators for the lights can be heard-generators can be seen on top of the loco above the last set of drive wheels.
 
Saved By Those Who Cared

Once UP largely replaced it's steam locomotives with diesel like many other RR's the fromer were sold off as scrap. The men who loved steam and in particular this locomotive at UP's shops shoved the loco deep into the sheds and protected it against nosey bean counters looking for something to sell off.

Finally over years UP came to realise what it had and the loco was lovingly restored and maintained by those who care. IIRC UP runs the largest steam locomotive "system" in the US if not world (there are one or two more steam locos in UP's shop IIRC),and they are used not just for excursions or shows. Union Pacific 3985 Challenger can still do what it was made to do and very well, haul huge freight trains. It is not uncommon for UP 3985 to haul a train of revenue producing cargo either on it's way back to or from an excursion/show, or simply put into service.

The biggest dream of many steam locomotive fans is to see one of UP's "Big Boys' restored and running, but that isn't going to happen.
 
They are wondrous machines, but all that stress - that doesn't tear the engine apart - takes its toll on components. These engines are maintenance intensive and that is probably the main reason why they've been phased out. I wonder however why consideration wasn't given to a steam powered turbine locomotive. The turbine(s) could power an electric generator which in turn would power the wheels. But I guess diesel does it just as well.
 
UP "Big Boy"

Is on display in the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, PA. I saw it some time ago. I seem to remember that the boilers as well as the drive wheels were articulated to negotiate tight curves. All I recall remarking on was how that engineer's cab must have been hot has H-ll!
 
B. Danielson, Like at the 17 minute mark, that noise?

Rich, Experimental ones were tried, but the vibration, coal dust, smoke particles and other "road problems" impaired the performance of the turbine and the electrical systems. The turbine's blades were especially vulnerable to damage from the bumps when the engines were coupled to trains. See the link for more info including the surprising fact that the vibration of a train killed tropical fish in an aquarium. I can see how. I rode from here to Fallingwater in PA and back in two days in a huge, new motorhome and the subtle vibration massaged the peristalsis in my alimentary canal to an almost complete stop, if you get the point I am trying to make subtly cause I'm not so good at being subtle. The fish probably got plugged up with poop and died.

And, yes steam and water do a real number on any lubrication and most any time a locomotive stopped, there was a great deal of oiling around to be done. Steam locomotives have to spend a lot of time in the shop for just routine stuff. The lack of efficiency in the delivery of power causes the wheels to pound the track so the wheels have to be heated with torches to remove the steel "tire" from the wheels and have new ones installed regularly. They were trying to overcome some of this maintenance with the turbines.

 
Fantastic Video !

Thanks for posting that.

My Grandfather was a huge Steam Locomotive Fanatic. I vaguely remeber a few of these still around when I was 4-6 years old (1959-1961). I remember going on a Steam Locomotive ride somewhere in NJ.

Just watching all that mechanical movement is just Mesmerizing. Yup, That Steam Whistle. WOW !!! What a sound.
 
Big Boys, Challengers, H-8 Allegheny

Were all examples of purpose built locomotives that is they were first and foremost designed to suit the railroads/potential owners needs. In the cases of the above named behemoths it was usually for hauling huge freight and or passenger trains and or at high speeds.

The Callenger remains the largest, powerful and fastest steam locomotive in US service to haul passenger trains, but neither the Big Boy nor Allegheny locos were sloches either.

Consider two Allegheny steam locos,one at each end, took a train of 140 cars weighing nearly 12,000 tons eastward up from Hinton, West Virgina to the Allegeny Summit tunnel on an incline of 0.57 percent (1 in 175).

Diesel electric locos put an end to all this purpose building. Instead of looking for one or more powerful steam locomotives to power a train with only often the extra power needed at certain points as helpers over hills or steep grades, now a RR would simply look at the total load of a train and add extra diesel engines to suit requirements. Beauty of diesels is that unlike coal powered locos they all could linked to and controlled by one operator, a huge cost savings.

Still some RR excutives still tried to get their own "custom" designs out of diesel locomotive makers. This prompted one such company (IIRC it was General Motors) to tell one RR boss "we'll build you a locomotive, you tell us what colors you want it painted and we shall deliver.. you can have the locomotive on a trial basis for "X" amount of months if it does not suit send it back at no cost". Well the RR took the offer, and at the end of the period not only kept the engine but ordered several more.

As for fires, all steam locomotives that burned wood, coal or whatever could and often did start fires caused by hot embers being ejected from the engine. Many RR's used to maintain fire stations to look out for signs of a fire so it could be delt with.

UP's Challengers were all built to burn coal but some if not all were converted to oil then often back to coal again. One worry was of course the fact coal came from mines and miners had this pesky habit of labour action which shut down the mines. At that time nearly 100% of the nations goods moved by rail, so no coal equalled almost shutting down commerce. There was also a time when oil was cheaper than coal, so that factored into the equation as well.
 
turbine noise

yep, around 17:00 is one of the times the generator turbines can be heard-little steam plume from turbine discharge can be seen too.In my area is a little steam train that runs a short route during tourist season-called the"1880 train" the two small locos they use date from 1919 and 1926
 
A non-articulated, 484 at 75 mph with whistle blowing

The UP 844. Note that when a steam locomotive is pulling passenger cars a Diesel electric lotomotive has to be used for electricity for the passenger cars' systems to operate. It is also used for dynamic braking and, in the case of a breakdown of the steam engine, the Diesel can pull the train in.

 
As I understand it (or understood it, if I'm wrong) UP liked having one big engine/locomotive rather than multiples for some reason. They continued this into the diesel era (here's a shot taken at the Illinois Railway Museum this summer) with some huge monsters - the 8500 GTEL. This one (see photo in link) was only in use for like 9 years or so in the 60's - it was a huge fuel burner, but very impressive in action.

 
I think that if we consider the terrain of the UP routes, we see challenging topography with mountains and steep grades. There is a lot of mining out west so there is heavy ore to be hauled up hill and down. Powerful engines were needed, especially when it came to steam locomotives because they are harder to use together on a train. Usually, steep grades called for a helper to be attached to the rear of a train, but extra engines added extra weight to the train and consumed more fuel than one giant huge powerful locomotive, and adding helpers was not practical in many cases where great power was needed at many points along the route. When the steam locomotives were used, adding another locomotive to help with grades and going over a mountain was not simply a matter of adding another engine. It takes hours of heating to get a steam locomotive ready to be functional and once heated, they have to be kept simmering until needed. These are not like a kitchen pressure cooker. These steam engines operate with huge amounts of pressure; 300 pounds of steam per inch is not excessive for some and given their weights, they cannot even move without a lot of steam pressure, let alone pull any weight. A helper steam locomotive has to be fired up in a yard and have its tender filled with fuel and water. It just can't sit somewhere like a Diesel and be started with a turn of a switch and spring to life. Then it has to travel to where it is needed so there is a great deal of time and fuel involved in using steam helpers. That is why the UP relied on powerful locomotives that, at all but the most extreme locations, could pull the train without help. In the train pulled by the 3985, you will see a huge Diesel locomotive behind the second tender. It is there for supplying power to the passenger coaches and for helping with braking, but it is also there in case the steam locomotive has a problem. In such a case, the Diesel can move the whole train so UP did choose very powerful locomotives, in both steam and Diesel, just as you suspected, and for a very good cause, their routes and their trains' manifests.

If you have done any reading about the hurricane that struck the Florida Keys in the early part of the 20th Century, you will remember that there were many workers that needed to be evacuated, but their bosses were late making the decision and getting a steam locomotive fired up and running in Miami added delays to the plan once the bureaucrats stopped effing around and made the call to evacuate. The train finally arrived and just as the men were climbing aboard, a huge surge washed over the tracks and sent the whole train into the ocean. You can talk about life being cruel and nature being cruel, but both are generally helped by mankind's cruelty, incompetence and stuidity.[this post was last edited: 11/12/2012-18:46]
 
And a couple of "Big Boys"

Big Boy #4012

 

 

I remember seeing one of these in person on static display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.   I was surprised of the massive scale of this locomotive, over 16 feet tall, 11 feet wide and 85 feet long alone!   When you add in the tender, it totals 132 feet in length!

 

Kevin

[this post was last edited: 11/12/2012-14:37]

revvinkevin++11-12-2012-14-21-56.jpg
 

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