This is MTH 80-3209-1 HO UP 4-8-8-4 Big Boy #4016/3.0. 4-8-8-4 Big Boy (original) steam engine with Proto-Sound 3.0, Union Pacific. Cab number: 4016. 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.
New for 2011 is the addition of an AC 3-Rail Marklin system version for those who prefer to run their HO locomotives under the Marklin operating system.
Its key features are:
Die-cast boiler and tender body
Die-cast metal chassis
Authentic paint scheme & cab numbers
RP-25 metal wheels mounted on metal axles
Operating lighted marker lights
Constant voltage headlight
Prototypical Rule 17 lighting
Detailed truck sides
Detailed cab interior
Powerful balanced 12-volt 5-pole precision skewed flywheel equipped motor
Two Kadee compatible scale couplers
Metal handrails and decorative bell
Decorative metal whistle
Sprung drive wheels
Synchronized puffing ProtoSmoker System
Locomotive speed control in scale MPH increments
Locomotive cab to tender deck plate
Engineer and fireman figures
Detailed tender undercarriage
Real coal load
Interchangeable traction tire-equipped drive wheels
On-board DCC receiver
Operates on Code 70, 83, & 100 rail curves
Two scale operating Kadee couplers
Proto-Sound 3.0 with The Digital Command System Featuring: Quillable whistle with Freight Yard Proto-Effects
Unit measures: 18 11/16 x 1 9/16 x 2 1/4
Operates on 18 radius curves
Proto-Sound 3.0 equipped locomotives can be controlled in command mode with any DCC compliant command control system. While the user won't have access to all of the incredible features of Proto-Sound 3.0, independent control over the locomotive is possible. This means you can continue to use your existing DCC controller to independently control your other DCC equipped locomotives in addition to your Proto-Sound 3.0 locomotive on the same track at the same time.
When using a DCC controller, the following Proto-Sound 3.0 locomotive features are accessible:
(F0) Headlight on/off
(F1) Bell on/off
(F2) Whistle/Horn on/off
(F3) Start-up/Shut-down
(F4) PFA initiate and advance
(F5) Cab light on/off
(F6) Engine sounds on/off
(F7) Volume low, med, high, off
(F8) Smoke on/off
(F9) Forward signal sound
(F10) Reverse signal sound
(F11) Coupler slack sound
(F12) Grade crossing
(F13) One-shot Doppler on/off
(F14) Extended start up
(F15) Extended shut down
(F16) Labor chuff
(F17) Drift chuff
(F18) Smoke Volume low, med, high
(F19) Single short whistle toot
(F20) Coupler close
(F21) Feature reset
(F22) Idle sequence 1
(F23) Idle sequence 2
(F24) Idle sequence 3
(F25) Idle sequence 4
(F26) Brakes auto/off
(F27) Cab chatter auto/off
(F28) Clickety-clack auto/off
Condition: Factory New (
C-9)
Operational Status: FunctionalOriginal Box: Yes (
P-9)
Manufacturer: MTH
Model Number: 80-3209-1
Road Name: Union Pacific (UP)
MSRP: $649.95
Scale/Era: HO Scale
Model Type: Steam Loco
The Trainz SKU for this item is P11824731.
Trainz Product Id: 11824731
