Big Boys - UP 4-8-8-4's

The 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangment was unique to both the United States and to the Union Pacific Railroad. No other railroad and no other country made locomotives anything like these.

Many consider the 4-8-8-4s or "Big Boys" to be the largest steam locomotives ever built in the entire world. It would be hard to argue differently.

When the Union Pacific created plans to have a locomotive designed that could haul 3,600 ton trains unassisted over the Wahsatch Mountains east of Ogden, UT, they had plans to give the name "Wahsatch" to this wheel arrangement. However, during the construction of the first of these locomotives, an ALCO machinist wrote the words "Big Boy" on the smokebox of the locomotive. The name stuck and became the name of this locomotive type.

Site URL: http://www.steamlocomotive.com/locobase.php?country=USA&wheel=4-8-8-4
Date resource added: 23-Nov-1998
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