You have to live a few years to fully appreciate technology obsolescence.
My father was born the year the Titanic left Southampton. His town had dirt roads and horse drawn wagons. During his life he got to see airplanes go from sophisticated cloth and wood kites to the Concorde SST. He got to see America electrify, televise, telephone-ize, then cell phone-ize, computerize, satellite-ize, and go to and from the moon, to travel overseas by steam ship and then by jet. He saw the end of the telegraph, the typewriter, steam trains, film cameras, vinyl records, 8-track tapes, cassettes, VHS and Beta. Dirt roads were replaced by concrete and asphalt two lanes and then highways. Vehicle speeds, capacities and functionality increased, each generation obsoleting the one before.
I reflected on this while waiting for a train on a hot afternoon in small town Aubrey, Texas. The train is the mighty Union Pacific Big Boy 4014. Built in December 1941 by Baldwin Locomotives – the same month as World War II started for the U.S. – this engine was the epitome of steam train design. It was the biggest and arguably most capable steam train to be built.
Weighing in at some 1.2 million pounds, and more than 132-feet long, its more than 6,000 horsepower could haul a 3,600 ton train unassisted up the Wasatch Mountain grade. That’s the equivalent of 90 fully loaded Class 8 tractor-trailers.
On level track this beast could go 70 mph, although it usually traveled no more than 55mph.
The train retired in 1961 after 20 years and 1,031,205 service miles. The 4014 is the only one of eight remaining examples of the technological prowess of steam power, and the only one this big still running thanks to a major multi-year restoration by Union Pacific that completed in 2019.
The 4014 is the only one of eight remaining examples of the technological prowess of steam power, and the only one this big still running thanks to a major multi-year restoration by Union Pacific that completed in 2019.Rick Mihelic
