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I was in the train room today and brought down my Big Boy from its shelf from and ran it for the first time in over a year.  I was real pleased with it.  It ran perfectly and smoked a ton.  This came out in 2008 and was the first Legacy Flyer engine.  

I know people felt it had lots of issues with trucks and stuff, but it runs better than my Challenger and Y3.  Never a problem with its smoke unit like the others.

Our big train show is in Plano TX in three weeks and I think to will go to the club layout at the show for the first time since it was new.

The value is $682 according to Greeburgs.  Not too bad.

How many of you guys run yours?20180102_150101 

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I had one but sold it to pay for the challengers that were scale in size.  

But...

While I had it it always ran well, and I have heard many say that it is their best consistent runner, and always problem free.

Its my understanding that Lionel only had rights to produce K-Line, but that all the tooling and the company was owned by the Chinese company Sanda Kahn (or whoever), I wonder if the big boy tooling went the way of the S Gauge Mikado.  

Ben

Last edited by NotInWI

I never heard Lionel didn't own the tooling for the Big Boy.  I heard they owned it when they got K Line.  You never see them for sale much and you don't seem to see many trying to buy one. It's like they disappeared.  That's why I put up this post.

I haven't heard much about the Union Pacific restoration of the 4014.  Is that still going on?

AmFlyer posted:

I run mine regularly. I sent it to Carl and he did all his improvements on it, they are worth what it costs to have Carl make it right. It is a great running engine but a bit overscale. Compared to the scale variations in O gauge it is inconsequential.

Tom,

What does Carl do to improve them?

Bill

I don’t think Lionel owned K Line, I think they just had license to produce product under the K Line name and use the tooling.  If I recall, when K Line/Lionel went kaput, there was much chatter on the relationship with Lionel and the Chinese company that had all the tooling.  I think it was the holder of the tooling and K Line name in China that backed out on Lionel.  That might not be exactly how it played out, but I’m pretty sure Lionel’s relationship with the K Line brand ended for reasons outside Lionel’s control.  

I don’t know if the threads about that are retrievable, I think the last K Line by Lionel catalog was like 2011ish??? Would have happened around then. 

Ben

I still have, run, and enjoy my 4014 Big Boy.  Carl did his magic on mine as well.  He narrows the trailing truck side frames, the front tender truck side frames, and tucks in the caterpillar side frames on the tender as well.  Results in a nice clean look.  I had some trouble with BB's microswitch in the rear drive truck.  Had to replace it and try different numbers of washers under it, but (knock on wood) it's been working well since.  I've also serviced some with smoke unit troubles, and tender sub-frame wear issues.  The Big Boy and Challengers both rely on the majority of tender axles bearing on nothing but the edge of a sheet metal sub-frame.  If you don't regularly grease (not oil) those they wear down.  On one Big Boy that I replaced the sub-frame on it otherwise looked as though the tender was squatting.  The Mallet on the other hand has its tender axles in side frame bearing housing.  Keep them oiled and they should outlast the Challenger and BB's.  I love the way my Challengers run too.  I'll have to check my notes.  I know I did a bit of minor remedial work on them and some preventative work as well (pinned one portion of the crosshead linkage to prevent its cantilevered design from later resulting in droop, so far working great), and have fixed some issues on others for customers (e.g. solder shoulders on can motor contacts scraping through heat string tubing and shorting out on inside of the boiler shell, etc.), but otherwise I enjoy my gray UP and 3985 units.  They along with the BB and Mallets always get still photo and video cameras going when run on a club layout at a train show or event.   I am grateful Flyonel produced them for uS.  

Dave 

Last edited by Sgaugian
Roundhouse Bill posted:

I never heard Lionel didn't own the tooling for the Big Boy.  I heard they owned it when they got K Line.  You never see them for sale much and you don't seem to see many trying to buy one. It's like they disappeared.  That's why I put up this post.

I haven't heard much about the Union Pacific restoration of the 4014.  Is that still going on?

The UP restoration of the 4014 is still going on, and progressing steadily.  They are really going through the locomotive with a fine tooth comb.  There are many videos on youtube that give an idea of the work being done and it is quite extensive.

Here are a few:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...0l6Op2rM&t=4419s

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W8N64RVEiA&t=87s

They are working to get the locomotive operational in time for the 150th anniversary of the Golden Spike, which will occur in May, 2019.

 

My Big Boy was the first Legacy engine I purchased, caused me to upgrade from TMCC to Legacy. Mine has run a lot, last time it ran the cherry switch was not right, it is now on the project list for repair. I also sent mine to Carl for his rework magic because I want to be able to have some operating accessories with actuator attached to the track, with the pilot truck, trailing truck and centipede truck on the tender as manufactured there was a clearance problem. I love mine,

Ray

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