@Joey posted:Evidently the 4501, 2839, 2716, 611, 765, 261, 819, 4449, 1522, 614, and all the other main line steam crews have been dong it wrong all these years.
What a crock.
Not necessarily. How many of those engines go on the kind of trips that the Big Boy is doing? I realize that some of the engines you mention have done long trips, but I seem to recall that with the 765 when they were going over mountains they had diesels to be able to used dynamic braking (and I am going from memory on that). All I am saying is you have to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges, that's all. Not to mention that long distance steam train runs these days are getting to be more and more rare, things like 765 going over Horseshoe curve aren't going to happen from what I understand because few if any mainline railroads will allow steam.
Other thing is the UP is a commercial railroad running steam, and I realize non profits have huge limitations on spending, when you are dealing with corporate America running a good will effort like the big boy, they are going to put pressure to save every dime and nickel, beancounters I swear are toilet trained at gunpoint.......so what he says makes sense. Lot cheaper prob to replace parts on a diesel then it is an 80 year old steam engine, any load you can take off the steam engine makes sense. Is it 'pure'? Put it this way, if any of those other engines was being run by a real, class 1 railroad that is a public company I would bet pretty good money you would see the same thing (if any class 1 actually starts up a steam program again....)
