Pictures of the New York Central Railroad (NYC) class H 6 general purpose locomotive. United States Railroad Association (USRA) standard design 2-8-2 "Mikado", pulling a consist of NYC Pacemaker box cars, three NYC coal hopper cars and one Boston & Albany coal hopper car. This is a really great engine with terrific sounds including chuffing sounds.

Pictures of the California Zephyr, one A and two B units.

Pictures of the Sante Fe F7 Red Bonnet, A and B units.

Pictures of the Union Pacific ALCO PA 7.

Pictures of the ten car Union Pacific boxcar set (Marklin 45646). These are U.P. Type B-50-24/B-50-27 boxcars. Each car is different and has a unique road number. The Union Pacific Big Boy pulls the consist of boxcars on the layout. Marklin will produce a UP hopper car set and a UP caboose. Trix will also produce additional Union Pacific boxcars. I have ordered them and when they arrive I will add them to the consist.

Also see pictures below of the UP Big Boy pulling a long (18 cars) consist. The cars, however, are not typical of the Big Boy era in American railroading. Now I have to find an American lok that is consistent with these cars.

Pictures of Märklin's Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 locomotive. This locomotive is an Insider engine. It has two chips with numbers 40 and 41. The first chip controls the engine's speed, a smoke unit, if installed, the lights, the sign boards and acceleration control. The second chip is the sound chip which contols the chuffing sound, the whistle and the bell.

This loco has great detail. Even though it is articulated, it does extend over the road bed on turns. I am running it on M track which Märklin states is not the best track on which to run it. Marklin recommends C and K track as the most dependable for the Big Boy. Despite that warning my BB runs fine on my M track layout. I just watch the older turnouts.

The Big Boy is pulling a consist of 18 American freight cars with a Milwaukee Road caboose.  There are pictures of these cars as well.  Its hard to explain what it is doing on a Germany layout so I keep it on a shadow station siding and run it when I want to admire this beauty.

Truly an engine worth having.

The Big Boy has a rich history in the annals of American railroading. The UP Big Boys was built to haul freight from Odgen to Watash over a 1.14% grade. Twenty-five were built and the first, engine number 4000, a "class 1" was delivered to Ogden, Utah in September 1941. The Big Boys were taken out of service in 1959 and most were out of service by 1961. The last was retired from service in Utah in 1962 but in 1962 there were still four Big Boys operating in Green River, Wyoming.

By the way, the Big Boy is frequently referred to as a Mallet locomotive. It is not since it has a simple expansion rather than compound expansion which Mallets had. .

The sharpest curve the Big Boys could negotiate was a 20 degree curve. In HO scale, this would be a 40 inch radius curve.

Some of its history though is myth. One example - the Big Boy is NOT the largest engine ever built. To see which engine(s) are larger and a complete history and a full description of its specifications go to the URL below: