
World’s largest steam locomotive rolls through Chicago area - wglb
https://www.chicagotribune.com/visuals/ct-viz-train-big-boy-steam-locomotive-20190726-6p6csnoqhrebdbfgg6sjcb56ga-story.html
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Animats
This was a really good rebuild. The locomotive was brought up to its original
specs. This was not a patch job. Many parts were remade from scratch. Now UP
can use it all over their system for PR purposes.

UP also has an ALCO Northern, which has much parts commonality with the Big
Boy. So they took the opportunity to re-make many parts on both locomotives.

There's some hobbyist rebuilding of locomotives in the SF Bay Area at the
Niles Canyon Railway / Pacific Locomotive Association, but progress is
measured in decades.

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Miserlou57
Niles Canyon Railway guy here. We’ve got a lot of factions working on a lot of
projects. Steam, diesel, wood passenger cars...you name it. It’s an all-
volunteer organization, so we do the best we can with volunteer labor and
budget. Come check out the recently restored 1909 “Skookum” compound steam
locomotive!

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therealmarv
Hate geoblocking EU sites. That's not the internet, that's "localnet".

~~~
qiqitori
That's okay, but in my opinion you should instead hate the laws that cause
that kind of behavior. (The site doesn't geoblock Asia for example.)

The law's intentions don't matter IMO -- just look at it this way: site
operators not based in Europe and not targeting European users suddenly have
to invest dozens or hundreds of hours of development to add significant (and
most likely architecturally ugly) changes to their systems to accommodate
highly unlikely requests from the occasional visitor from Europe, or risk
breaking the law and risk not being able to set foot in Europe ever again.

Geoblocking is easy to implement and most likely already in place because
these sites aren't allowed to show their content in e.g. North Korea.

~~~
Narew
We must not hate the laws that protect our privacy. IMHO. But I'm agree with
the fact it can demand more works to be compliant than just block EU.

~~~
anoncake
You never have to block the EU. The GDPR only applies if you're either based
in the EU or specifically target European users.

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ksherlock
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_4014](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pacific_4014)

Interesting history. It was converted to run on oil a couple years ago, in
case you're wondering.

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mycall
Wow, built in 1941, still going.

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orpheline
More like, going again - the Big Boys were taken out of service in the late
1950's, early 1960's.

This one was sitting in a train museum in California for 50 years before the
Union Pacific got it back; they them spent several years restoring it to
running condition.

The UP has a some information about this train on their website:
[https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/index.htm](https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/4014/index.htm)

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AnimalMuppet
I've seen it running. It's impressive.

As orpheline said, it was at a museum in Pomona, California, for decades. It's
going back there October 12th and 13th (full schedule for the trip not
available yet). If you're going to go see it, though, be prepared for an
unreasonably large amount of traffic, even by Southern California standards.
Like, an absolutely absurd amount of traffic. It's _amazing_ how much
attention the Big Boy gets.

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orpheline
I saw it too - amazing to see a steam locomotive that size moving under
its'own power!

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orpheline
For anyone interested, the Union Pacific produced a high-quality for about the
Big Boy's called 'Last of the Giants'.

There are several cuts and copies of this on YouTube: the link below is an
edit from the 1990's includint interviews with former UP workers.

[https://youtu.be/KWNJ63C_0ts](https://youtu.be/KWNJ63C_0ts)

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exhilaration
If you're interested in big trains, there's a decommissioned one in
Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute: [https://www.fi.edu/exhibit/train-
factory](https://www.fi.edu/exhibit/train-factory) It's pretty cool to walk in
and around it.

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OldHand2018
It's scheduled to head west on Tuesday and be on display in Des Moines Iowa on
Aug 1. It's now on the return leg of the journey.

[https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm](https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm)

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fsagx
Big Boy has a live track available that shows its planned route. I've got my
viewing location picked out for a close-up view of it underway.

[https://www.up.com/forms/steam-trace.cfm](https://www.up.com/forms/steam-
trace.cfm)

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pablooliva
Thanks for the FU EU Chicago Tribune.

