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. Our model features a precision 12 volt 5-pole skew wound motor and die-cast metal construction 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. 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.

 

For those who have operated Marklin HO AC 3-rail trains in the past, this particular version of the Big Boy is equipped with Proto-Sound 3E+ and will give you an opportunity to run sound-equipped North American prototypes on your railroad with your Marklin DCC command control system.

Outfitted with NEM 311 wheels and NEM 365 couplers, each of these engines feature an all-new version of Proto-Sound 3.0, contain a third rail sliding shoe for use with Marklin HO stud rail and can operate on AC power. Like their 3.0 counterparts, Proto-Sound 3E+ locomotives feature full digital sound, synchronized puffing smoke timed to the locomotive's drive wheel' revolutions, speed control, 28 DCC functions*, hundreds of DCS sounds and features** and a command control receiver for use with Marklin DCC control systems.

Each die-cast steam locomotive is intricately detailed to reflect the prototype's unique look. The balanced 12-volt, 5-pole precision skewed flywheel equipped motor ensures that these locomotives will be the smoothest running engines on your roster. And now, thanks to Proto-Sound 3E+, they'll be the most fun to hear and control as well.

* Requires any DCC controller with 28 function capability
** Requires DCS System