Just months before Pearl Harbor, the American Locomotive Company delivered the first Big Boy to the Union Pacific Railroad. The UP's Department of Research and Mechanical Standards had designed the locomotive for a specific task: to pull a 3600-ton train unassisted over the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. While the Big Boy is often cited as the biggest steam locomotive ever built, in fact it is not. The Norfolk & Western's Y6 and A, the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range's Yellowstones, and the Chesapeake and Ohio's Alleghenys were all in the same league, and some exceeded the Big Boy's weight and power.

But in the battle for hearts and minds, the Big Boy won. Perhaps it was the name, simple and direct, scrawled on a locomotive under construction by an Alco shop worker. Maybe it was timing, as the Big Boys hit the road just when America needed symbols to rally around. Maybe the UP's publicity department just did a better job of telling the world what great equipment they had. Whatever the reason, the Big Boy captured the imagination of railfans and the American public over the ensuing years, perhaps more than any other steam engine. In many ways it is the symbolic locomotive of the American West, as big and powerful as the country it sped through.

Writer Henry Comstock beautifully described the Big Boy's place at the apex of steam engine history: \"A Union Pacific 'Big Boy' was 604 tons and 19,000 cubic feet of steel and coal and water, poised upon 36 wheels spaced no wider apart than those of an automobile. That it could thunder safely over undulating and curved track at speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour was due in large measure to the efforts of two long-forgotten pioneers. As early as 1836, the basic system that held its wheels in equalized contact with the rails was patented by a Philadelphian named Joseph Harrison; and a French technical writer, Anatole Mallet, first thought to couple two driving units heel to toe below one boiler in 1874.\"

This enduring symbol of American railroading returns to the rails, complete with the industry-leading speed control, smoke output, and range of accurate sounds that characterize all MTH locomotives complete with industry-leading speed control, synchronized puffing smoke timed to driver revolutions, and a range of accurate sounds that characterize all M.T.H. locomotives. Our model features a powerful motor for pulling power and speed that rival the original Big Boy - as well as authentic articulated chuffing sounds with the two engines drifting in and out of sync.

 

Features:

 

Die-Cast Boiler and Tender Body

Die-Cast Metal Chassis

Authentic Paint Scheme

Real Tender Coal Load

Die-Cast Locomotive Trucks

Engineer and Fireman Figures

Metal Handrails and Decorative Bell

Decorative Metal Whistle

Metal Wheels and Axles

Remote Controlled Proto-Coupler

Kadee Coupler Mounting Pads

Prototypical Rule 17 Lighting

Constant Voltage Headlight

Operating Firebox Glow

Operating Numberboard Lights

Lighted Cab Interior

Operating Tender Back-up Light

Precision Flywheel Equipped Motor

Synchronized Puffing ProtoSmoke System

Locomotive Speed Control In Scale MPH Increments

Wireless Drawbar

1:48 Scale Proportions

Onboard DCC Receiver

Proto-Scale 3-2 3-Rail/2-Rail Conversion Capable

Proto-Sound 3.0 With The Digital Command System Featuring Quillable Whistle With Freight Yard Proto-Effects

Unit Measures: 35 x 2 7/8 x 4 1/8

Operates On O-72 Curves 

 

 

 Steam DCC Features:

 

Headlight/Tail light

Bell

Whistle

Start-up/Shut-down

Passenger Station/Freight Yard Sounds

All Other Lights (On/Off)

Master Volume

Front Coupler

Rear Coupler

Forward Signal

Reverse Signal

Grade Crossing

Smoke On/Off

Smoke Volume

Idle Sequence 3

Idle Sequence 2

Idle Sequence 1

Extended Start-up

Extended Shut-down

One Shot Doppler

Coupler Slack

Coupler Close

Single Horn Blast

Engine Sounds

Brake Sounds

Cab Chatter

Feature Reset

Labor Chuff

Drift Chuff