Big Boy name

[SPer]

Which came first, the Big Boy hamburger mascot or the UP steam locomotive.

[rcdrye]

Bob's Big Boy was founded in 1936 in Glendale CA.  Unlikely to be the origin of the Big Boy name chalked onto the boiler of one of UP's 4-8-8-4s at Alco's plant in Schenectady NY in 1941.

[Flintlock76]

It wasn't unusual for railroaders back in the steam days to call the BIG freight locomotives "Big Boys," in addition to "Hogs" or "Battleships."

In the case of the UP Big Boy, an unknown shopman at ALCO chalked the name on the smokebox, and in this case it stuck to that particular class of locomotive.  

Why?  Who knows why?  It just did.

[Jones1945]

Speaking of the UP Big Boy, I once thought this is the engine type that can bring people together instead of endless arguing. I notice some younger UP fan and C&O H-8 "Allegheny" fan still arguing about which engine is bigger, heavier and more powerful on different platforms. Such argument or "discussion" encourages people to analysis things scientifically and based on fact but not feeling or imagination. But flogging the dead horse generation after generation, What's the good of it? 

[Flintlock76]

Mr. Jones, the way I look at it is as long as there's steam freaks there's going to be these kinds of discussions.  As long as it's all in fun there shouldn't be a problem.

I will say there's some out there who take this stuff WAY too seriously!  

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

And I will argue that a Chicago hot dog is infinitely better than a New York hot dog on any day.

Same goes for Chicago pizza

[Jones1945]

Flintlock76

Mr. Jones, the way I look at it is as long as there's steam freaks there's going to be these kinds of discussions.  As long as it's all in fun there shouldn't be a problem.

I will say there's some out there who take this stuff WAY too seriously!  

Exactly, Wayne. Some people just take it WAY too seriously and made conservation like an investigation. There was no perfect steam locomotive in my book. 

CSSHEGEWISCH

And I will argue that a Chicago hot dog is infinitely better than a New York hot dog on any day.

Same goes for Chicago pizza

I will skip the arguing part and put them all into my mouth! 

[Flintlock76]

Jones1945

 

 Oh, I wouldn't say one's any better than the other, they're both good!

 Just different, that's all.

Flintlock76

Mr. Jones, the way I look at it is as long as there's steam freaks there's going to be these kinds of discussions.  As long as it's all in fun there shouldn't be a problem.

I will say there's some out there who take this stuff WAY too seriously!  

 

 

 

Exactly, Wayne. Some people just take it WAY too seriously and made conservation like an investigation. There was no perfect steam locomotive in my book. 

 

 

CSSHEGEWISCH

And I will argue that a Chicago hot dog is infinitely better than a New York hot dog on any day.

Same goes for Chicago pizza

 

 

 

I will skip the arguing part and put them all into my mouth! 

 

[wjstix]

Flintlock76

It wasn't unusual for railroaders back in the steam days to call the BIG freight locomotives "Big Boys," in addition to "Hogs" or "Battleships."

In a scene in the 1930 railroad-themed movie "Danger Lights", Louis Wolheim's character refers to a Milwaukee Road 2-8-2 as "the big boy".

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

And how did a C&NW H-class 4-8-4 come to be called a "Zeppelin of the Rails"?  It was a little bit heavier than air.

[Flintlock76]

Anyone can feel free to correct me on this, but I believe it was an advertising ploy on the C&NW's part.

Considering the outstanding achievements and reliability of the "Graf Zeppelin" the C&NW called their new steam locomotives "Zeppelins Of The Rails" by way of a favorable comparison with the great German airship.  

Needless to say, this was long  before the "Hindenburg" disaster.  

[Overmod]

I believe you will find it's more a reference to the H class being nearly the size of a Zeppelin.

[Flintlock76]

You could very well be right.

However, I did some looking and found these two very interesting C&NW brochures concerning the H Class.

https://www.railarchive.net/cnwbook/class_h_leaflet1.htm  

https://www.railarchive.net/cnwbook/class_h_leaflet2.htm  

Dammit, they call them "Zeppelins" but don't say why!   Sheesh!

[Jones1945]

Nice find, Wayne. 

The C&NW H Class caught my attention in the "headlight brightness" post. She had a rather epic spec: TE was 71,800 lbf, only 100 lbf less than "my" PRR's Lamborghini S1 but she had a much lighter weight and a much better FA, not oversized; rebuilt with a list of cutting-edge stuff in 1940. Sound like a very underrated 4-8-4s. 

[Flintlock76]

Thanks Mr. Jones!

Continuing the research I hit every steam book I have here in the archives of the "Fortress Flintlock" and can't find anything to nail down where that "Zeppelin" name came from.

I DID find out those C&NW Northerns were the biggest 4-8-4's built until the N&W's Class J's came along.  Formidable!

So Overmod could be right on this one and it wouldn't surprise me at all if he is.  Good for him!

[Overmod]

Flintlock76

Continuing the research I hit every steam book I have here in the archives of the "Fortress Flintlock" and can't find anything to nail down where that "Zeppelin" name came from.

See the ad on p.57 of Tom Murray's book "Chicago and North Western Railway" (accessible via Google Books in the States if you don't own a copy) and then pull up the Complete Collection to read Wallace Abbey's article in October 1970 Trains (" ... Zeppelins they surely were not").  I dimly remember an article titled "An H of an engine" but nobody aside from TrainOrders even mentions it on the Web.

And just for the record, it's still the Fortress Firelock, unless Her Honor now goes by "Lady Flintstorm" which loses something ineluctable in its semantics.  Just because Clambake fudged your login credentials is no reason to tamper with the admirable.

Frankly it would be interesting to see if you could shoehorn this into PRR clearances for a WPB choice (using the blueprints for the first rebuild, which changed the H from merely awesome to near-perfect 'for purpose') with that Jones1945 patent semilune-windowed cab (and perhaps a rightsized Belpaire box and chamber, perhaps of Q2 derivation, if you can finagle it).  Go ahead and spec as lightweight a set of rods etc. as you can since you're building it new.

Control dimension is 100" max boiler diameter (plus cleading/lagging) over 76" drivers ... this rings a bell for you Double-Belpaire fans, nicht wahr?) for a nominal loading-gage height of 16' even ... which I think is still a tad high to get all the way into Chicago without a fuss.  But look how close it would come to a practical fulfillment of the original Q1 design parameters!

And yes, it's a pity the 1946 rebuilding specs wouldn't have been available for that purpose, as they essentially made this package what some gamers call god-level.  Read about the H1s in the contemporary trade press if you want to see something impressive (and unaccountably underrated).  It was as much a crime not to have preserved one of those as it was to lose the Niagaras.  And yes, that's a strong statement.

[Flintlock76]

OK, "Fortress Firelock" it will remain!  I like the alliteration of it myself, to tell the truth!

Clambake?     And that's all I'm going to say on THAT subject!

[Penny Trains]

Flintlock76

Clambake? Ick!

I am with you. 

[Erik_Mag]

Overmod

See the ad on p.57 of Tom Murray's book "Chicago and North Western Railway" (accessible via Google Books in the States if you don't own a copy) and then pull up the Complete Collection to read Wallace Abbey's article in October 1970 Trains (" ... Zeppelins they surely were not").  I dimly remember an article titled "An H of an engine" but nobody aside from TrainOrders even mentions it on the Web.

I'm very sure the "H of an engine" was from one of the first paragraph's in Abbey's article. Something to the effect of "imagining a C&NW Pacific and doubling that" with the result being one H of an engine.

[Jones1945]

Overmod

Frankly it would be interesting to see if you could shoehorn this into PRR clearances for a WPB choice (using the blueprints for the first rebuild, which changed the H from merely awesome to near-perfect 'for purpose') with that Jones1945 patent semilune-windowed cab (and perhaps a rightsized Belpaire box and chamber, perhaps of Q2 derivation, if you can finagle it).  Go ahead and spec as lightweight a set of rods etc. as you can since you're building it new.

 

You are definitely correct that I do feel like I patented the PRR style cab, from the forum to the train sim community... I feel like I am the last active Pennsy fan in other platforms except here and Facebook

When people discussing why there was no PRR 4-8-4s, we always heard about N&W Class J but not other options due to the business relationship of N&W and PRR as well as the excellent performance of N&W Class J during the test. Now we found a very smart and fit candidate but I am afraid that even the upgraded version of CN&W H-1 was not considered powerful enough in PRR's mind.

 

But at least the 76" driver would be more attractive than 69" for the motive power department of PRR. The TE and FA of H-1 was still slightly inferior to the Q1, a design from 1939. Although in hindsight, an H-1 or even a PRR M1b was powerful enough for postwar traffic load...But I believe either Q1 and CN&W H-1 Class were the best candidate to power the express freight service like NYC's Pacemaker (65mph)

 

Overmod

And yes, it's a pity the 1946 rebuilding specs wouldn't have been available for that purpose, as they essentially made this package what some gamers call god-level.  Read about the H1s in the contemporary trade press if you want to see something impressive (and unaccountably underrated).  It was as much a crime not to have preserved one of those as it was to lose the Niagaras.  And yes, that's a strong statement.

The only spec I can find is from here:

https://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=4-8-4&railroad=cnw#252

As I suggested before, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago have plenty of space and room to preserve all these outstanding steam engines of America, but it seems that some people with power in their hands wanted to get rid of the steam-powered engine in the States as many as possible since the end of World War II

[Flintlock76]

As far as post-war steam preservation's concerned I think it was strictly a matter of which railroad, who was in charge, and what the attitude was.

The B&O had a collection of classic steam, the PRR had one at Northumberland PA but for whatever reason neglected to include the S1 and a T1, why we'll never know.  The NYC just massacred their steam fleet and the only NYC steamers that survive did so by accident. No Erie steam survives.  That Southern Ps-4 in the Smithsonian survived because the Southern's then VP of Law Graham Claytor argued to save it as strongly as if he was a defense attorney in a murder trial and that Ps-4 was his client.  But then, some 'roads were very generous in donating steamers to towns and cities along the routes as park ornaments.  

Hit-or-miss, no rhyme or reason.  What can you do?

And it's too bad the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago could make space for a U-Boot, but not for a "Zeppelin."

[Miningman]

Could not agree more Wayne. Why honour and display a Nazi killing machine responsible for tens of thousands of horrid deaths at sea and the cutting edge of a fanatical group of lunatics directly responsible for tens of millions of deaths. Submariners were selected for their devotion to Nazism, not worthy of an ounce of military, naval or seamanship praise. Trophy of war? Might as well honour the devil and hell itself. 

On the other hand the C&NW Zeppelins played no small part in ending the war and worthy of recognition. 

Major major fail. 

[Miningman]

Mike sent me this as a follow up. From Alco! 

Melt the sub down and use the steel in building a new C&NW Zeppelin with an explanation of its role in winning WWII. Cost 30 million or so, make the Museum a Mecca for railfans. Now that's something to cheer about!

Here is the link to the ad if the writing is too small and fuzzy using Imgur 

 

https://ia802702.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/30/items/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_jp2.zip&file=bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_jp2/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_0063.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0

[BaltACD]

Miningman

Mike sent me this as a follow up. From Alco! 

Melt the sub down and use the steel in building a new C&NW Zeppelin with an explanation of its role in winning WWII. Cost 30 million or so, make the Museum a Mecca for railfans. Now that's something to cheer about!

Here is the link to the ad if the writing is too small and fuzzy using Imgur 

 

https://ia802702.us.archive.org/BookReader/BookReaderImages.php?zip=/30/items/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_jp2.zip&file=bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_jp2/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ_0063.jp2&scale=2&rotate=0

Any idea of which year of the war the ad hailed from?  42 & 43 were relatively grim years for 'good' news, however as 43 progressed into 44 and D-Day the PR of the war changed in tone.

[Flintlock76]

Well, one of the reason's that U-Boot's there is as a reminder of a magnificent feat of arms by the US Navy in WW2, the first Navy capture of an enemy vessel since the War of 1812, and one that resulted in the award of the Medal of Honor to the officer commanding the boarding party.

As a matter of fact, Captain (later Rear Admiral) Daniel Gallery, the commander of the hunter-killer group that captured the sub was the first US Navy commander since the War of 1812 to give the command "AWAY ALL BOARDERS!"  

Quite a guy, Captain Gallery!  Here's his story...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_V._Gallery  

Now a war souvenir like that is just too good to throw away!

[Miningman]

Balt-- The ad appeared in March 1943 Life Magazine so still a bit in the iffy dark days.

https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_X1EEAAAAMBAJ/page/n63

Flintlock 76/ Wayne-- A very reluctant ok from me... but.. I like my idea better.