According to sources, four of the Union Pacific's Big boys were still stored operable at Green River, Wyoming until 1962.

Does anyone have a source on numbers were those four?

I just opened up my copy of Ron Ziel's book Twilight Of Steam, in it he mentions 4 were in working condition at Green River but no mention of what numbers.

The following page has images of four separate tenders poking out of the roundhouse but it mentions that two 4009 and 4010 were already condemned for scrapping so I don't know if this is the four ( I don't think it was from the way the book is written)? Also in the photo were 4020 and 4018.

Interestingly enough it also shows a picture of 3985 and 4023 saying that both of those locomotives were recently completely overhauled and seems to imply plans to keep them indefinitely and then run them again. Makes me wonder what shape 4023 is in today. I guess getting it out of the park must have been a lot less desirable than getting 4014?

IIRC that, combined with the 4023's condition after several years being outside, were key factors in the UP choosing 4014 over the other surviving Big Boys.

Checking my slightly singed (from our house fire 2 years ago) copy of Joe Collins' "The Last of Steam" one of my favorite books, although none are at Green River specifically, he mentions that 10 Big Boys saw service between Cheyenne and Laramie in the Fall of 1958. The closing page of the book shows two: 4007 and 4022 out-of-service in 1959 in the roundhouse at Laramie maybe still serviceable? His other pics of Big Boys are either undated or taken earlier in the '50's.
Ned

I just looked up that book, I was not familiar with it but I think I will need to buy a copy. Oh to have lived during that time frame. My good friend the late Bob Carlson told me how towards the late '50s early '60s and there was a publication that used to tell you where all the remaining steam was to be found kind of like a journal you could pick up at the hobby stores. Bob had quite the stories of chasing the last of the big steam and even worked on some of it in Maine. Fortunately for us people like Ron Ziel actually thought to write down what these final trips were like so that future generations such as myself who were born too late could actually appreciate some of it. Is the Joe Collins book pretty similar in nature?

The thing to remember about that era a bit less nostalgically is that so much of the information was thirdhand, passed around by long-distance phone or "snail mail," and information appearing in Mike Eagleson's "In Search of Steam" column in Railroad Magazine or in the pages of Trains Magazine was usually about three months out of date by the time it reached readers--a far cry from our modern "live" or "same-day" videos "from the field" online, and the ability to "fly the Google Earth drone" over the most isolated mine site or most secure steel mill/power plant to look for surviving relics!

I've never laid eyes on a "journal" of "still active steam" in North America from the waning days of revenue operations, in contrast to some from the UK I've seen from the 1960s/1970s. The closest I could come to that was Mike Eagleson's column compiling mailed-in photos and reports from contributors. The first "big list" I know of was Victor Koenigsberg's 1967 self-published "U.S. Steam Locomotive Directory," which was by necessity rife with missing or outdated information/data, mostly a list of displayed/preserved steam with a few still-operating industrial locos and abandoned relics hither and yon. William S. Young's Railroading/Steam Locomotive & Railroad Tradition also attempted to document surviving steam as best as Mr. Young could.

The problem arises when any such source like this attempts to market itself as the be-all, end-all of everything known. As any astute researcher knows, even the absolute best "wiki" in 2023 suffers from errors of omission, failure of anyone to contribute that one loco/bridge/restaurant/whatever, and outdated information. Any intelligent compilers or editors of any such "guides" openly acknowledge the limitations of their craft--which of course is in complete contrast to the objectives of "the marketing department" intent on insisting this is THE MUST-HAVE guide to your objective to sell more copies (or web ads).

Additionally you might check out Joe Collias' "The Search for Steam" Howell-North 1972 which is also very good.
Not sure where I found my copy, but Centennial Rail, LTD published the "List of Steam Locomotives in the United States" 5th printing 1987 which is pretty comprehensive but is obviously missing more recent "finds". Not sure if an update has been printed. POC was JD Minnich 303-369-9247 but he may have since gone to his reward.

"Back in the day" Trains used to periodically publish a list of totals of which roads still had active steam. N&W normally led the pack until almost the end although GTW and IC were usually in the running.

Alexander,

I wish I was gifted with a better memory in life but sadly mine is just not the greatest, none the less I swear I recall Bob mentioned that there was a booklet published regularly that was available at all the hobby shops back in the day.

I don't recall it being Trains magazine but maybe my memory is fading at this point in time. Maybe it was just Mike Eqglesons column with Railroad Magazine? If you read the end of Ziel's book it seems like he cites both Trains magazine and Railroad Magazine as being the best sources for steam info in 1963 so maybe I have it wrong.

Part of me just seems to think I recall Bob describing it as being a little less formal and more dynamic of a resource where people would post leads and track activity as steam wound down but maybe I have it all wrong. Sadly the folks who were chasing steam in the early '60s are becoming fewer and fewer but maybe someone here can chime in on what it was like chasing steam back in the day?

When you spend decades in academic-level research, you learn a few things:

1) The guy you treasure is not always the "walking encyclopedia," but the guy who says "I don't know, but I know where to look it up...." (George H. Drury used to joke that his willingness to say that got him the librarian job at Kalmbach Publishing.)
2) "False memory syndrome" is very real., and it doesn't always involve traumatic events. See https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basi ... e-memories Further, such false memories often inadvertently become "folklore," mutating further in the folk process.
3) No published source, however well-regarded, is "definitive" or "authoritative." One needs to be aware of what is left out or ignored, and why.
4) You cannot "prove a negative", aside from the likes of photos of the likes of GTW 5629 or N&W Y6's being scrapped.

In the 1980s I was doing a lot of the same legwork as J. David Conrad and Joe Minnich, back in the pre-household-internet days. I spent a few days in Kalmbach's Milwaukee library, which at the time was the best "railfan library" in the nation, if off-limits to the public, as well as perusing other lesser-known archives. The conclusion George and my academic advisers came to at the time was that the compilations I sought, of a type the British associations and publishers eagerly printed, were not to be found in the United States, and I was faced with compiling it myself. Then Dave Conrad came forth with his SLDNA, an update of Koenigsberg 20 years later with professional publishing, and Extra 2200 South started publishing occasional rosters of preserved diesel locos in North America in its pages. Now we have an embarrassment of riches in information communication, yet most excursion operations and museums STILL don't seem to know exactly what is on their properties.

It stands to reason that if there had been a periodical publication dedicated just to tracking the "last steam" out there as unpreserved revenue use was winding down in the 1950s and 1960s, between the likes of Drury, Conrad, Minnich, and a myriad of others who shared my vision of a "grand unified rail preservation inventory," I would have discovered its existence and compiled a complete set for at least one of the rail libraries out there.

There WERE other publications out there that assumed some of the role of tracking "last survivors" as well as other news and articles of interest--among the Railroad Magazine, Western Railroader, Flimsies, Pacific Rail News, various society newsletters-turned-magazine (Tri-State NRHS's Block Line, for example) and the like, and at least one still survives today--Railpace Newsmagazine.

Today the subset of the hobby that beats bushes for "hidden gems" would be the "critter chasers," the obsessive-compulsives that travel halfway or more across the nation to hunt down increasingly rare diesel models in industrial service--and stop off at places on the way and back for more of them. These were the guys that happily kept Extra 2200 South updated, traded tips and photos, etc. I've known a few of these guys over the years, but age has claimed all but one of them, as well as Extra 2200 South. Ken Ardinger still keeps "Loco Notes" alive in the pages of Railfan & Railroad, however.

As I recall, he also mentions that #4005 was supposed to go to Argentina, but then the buyers couldn't get the money together. That's the only place I've ever heard that tale mentioned. Has anyone ever found any other proof of that claim or details of the transaction?

I believe Ron ma have confused the 5511 and the 4005 in that statement. I heard of 5511 going to Argentina several times, but like yourself, only the one reference to a Big Boy. Ron was present when 4015 was being cut up and was offered the chance to participate, but declined.

When 4023 was dragged up to Kenefic Park (dumb move), lots of people objected, only to be overruled. When I visited the site some 13 years ago, the locomotive was in pristine condition. Removing it is, of course, possible, but terribly expensive. Why the Big Boy displayed in Cheyenne itself wasn't chosen for restoration, I can't say. It had been in at least one flood, but considering the total tear-down necessary for operation, I'd have thought it would have been at the head of the pack for renewal.

Considering that 3985 ran for years after being stored outdoors, it's probably 4023 was/is in similar condition.

Getting back to the question at hand, which Big Boys outlasted the others in storage, and were last to be cut up?

This from a Google search"

It really was unusual. On page 122 of John Bush and Jim Ehernberger's "Union Pacific Steam, Big Boy Portraits", published in 1996, there is a list of the known scrap dates for UP Big Boy locomotives. The list shows that UP 4003 was scrapped on 5/31/1963, and that UP 4010 and 4020 were scrapped on 5/24/1963.

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