Product Features and Details
Prototype: Union Pacific Railroad (U.P.) class 4000 "Big Boy". Road no. 4015 as it looked around 1960. Use: Heavy freight trains.
Model: Era III, in the new, impressive Trix technology: . Frame, boiler, and tender made of die-cast metal. . Powerful can motor with a bell-shaped armature and with a flywheel, in the boiler. . Comes from the factory with a built-in DCC-decoder. . Comes from the factory with a built-in sound generator for digital operation only. . Headlights on the locomotive and tender, and number board lights are maintenance-free LED"s. . Close coupling between the locomotive and tender. . Comes from the factory with RP 25 wheel contours and Kadee-compatible couplers. The driving wheels are divided into two linked groups to enable the locomotive to negotiate sharp curves. The locomotive has Boxpok wheels. 8 axles powered, center driving axles spring mounted. A coupler can be installed on the pilot at the front of the locomotive, the steam lines swing out with the cylinders, the metal handrails are separately applied, there are many separately applied details, and figures of a locomotive engineer and fireman are included. Märklin close couplers included. Length over the couplers 465 mm / 18-5/16".
In the center of the UNION PACIFIC"s route network is the steeply graded line between Cheyenne and Laramie on Sherman Hill. It goes through the Wasatch Rocky Mountains and on west to the Great Salt Lake. At the end of the 1930s the freight trains on this route became longer and faster and required time-consuming, costly doubleheading with several locomotives. A specially designed new locomotive with immense dimensions was planned to relieve this situation. The necessary high power output and the correspondingly high weight had to be translated to the rails on an articulated locomotive frame. The American Locomotive Co. (ALCO) developed a colossus with a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement, with a service weight of over 500 metric tons and a length of 40.5 meters or 132 feet 10-1/2 inches. This giant was respectfully named the "Big Boy" in ALCO"s erecting halls. This name became the embodiment for the largest steam locomotive in the world. A total of 25 Big Boys were built in 1941 and 1944. They were in use around 20 years in Utah and Wyoming and each one ran over 1 million miles. Eight of the Big Boys retired from the roster at the beginning of the 1960s are still in existence. They still give you an unforgettable impression of the former size.
Your dealer has cars that go well with this locomotive.