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We had a friendly fight on the forums about this some time ago. The N and W Class Y6b Mallet has awesome tractive effort and will keep any train moving (5-20 mph) no matter where the track goes.. up hill down hill side hill and upside down. The power lies in tractive effort and small driving wheels which gives "Strength" to the engine when the train is heavy and the grades are steep. The Big Boy is designed to keep a large train moving fast across wide open and hostile western reaches where grades are kind of small but are very long. These kinds of grades occasionally gets very steep and awesome. The Big Boy is capable of keeping enough steam and horsepower at the wheels to maintain high speeds with long trains. Viewed another way you have western engines Horsepower versus the eastern engines Torque. As ndbrr stated in order to have a steam engine to do a job properly to what you need it to do is a combination of different factors.. some more suited to the east and others better for the west. For sake of "What if" let us put the Big Boy on the Eastern Mountains and the Y6b Mallet out west. I think this what would happen: The Big Boy will not have room to reach it's best power and constantly waste fuel and water slipping on some of the brutal eastern grades and probably stall a time or two. It will probably get the train delivered but will be late, worn out and dead on the law. The Mallet will crawl at 40 Mph and run out of fuel and water long before it arrives at the destination. The logistical support required to feed and water these engines probably will remove any benefit with this engine out west. Now keep in mind that various engines such as the Challenger, 2-6-6-6 and 2-8-8-4's as well as the Cab-Forwards all are pretty similar to this problem but are designed for thier specific areas of operations. And finally the classic problem remains "If the train does not move, add more locomotives" And so you had 3 Mallets of the Y6b class up front and perhaps 2 on the rear of a really heavy train. Or two Bigboys up front. I am too young to ever know the power and glory of these monsters in thier heydey.
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