Hello,
i am new to steam era trains. I got a big boy and I anm not familiar with the types and model info on the freight. I have the Accurail #8109 Pacific Fruit Express car set that is the 40’ steel reefer R-40-14 , I also have found that S-40-12 livestock cars, and the CA-3 caboose are proper freight cars but what coal, boxcars, tank and other cars are prototypical for this era? how many cars did the big boy pull? I am new to this era and have not found much on google. Thanks in advance Mike N8FWD
Howdy.
The Big Boy was used primarily on the E-W UP mainthrough Nebraska, Wyoming and Utah. It pulled both general merchandise and persihable trains.
Therefore it could have pulled any type of railcar that was built from the 1920's through the 1950's.
It was about a 6000 hp engine. Assuming 2.0-2.5 hp/tt over the mountains that would mean it would handle a 2500-3000 ton train. Assuming an average car weighs 70 tons (40 tons freight, 30 tons car) that gives a 40-50 car train. On the other hand if its a train load of empties, 30 tons per car, that would be a 100 car train. If it was a drag freight at 1-1.5 hp/tt that would a 4000-6000 ton train.
It would be less likely to pull SFRD or ART reefers and more likely to pull PFE and FGEX/WPEX reefers. It would have pulled mostly GS gons for coal cars. Boxcars could be any road, but there would be PRR, NYC, B&O and NP boxcars just because they had huge fleets. They would have had CRIP, WAB and CNW cars because they were connections. Tank cars would be UTLX, SHPX and GATX plus privately owned cars. That being said, almost any car built during the 1920-1959 eras could have been behind a Big Boy.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com