GM V12 engine

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1998_K1500_Sub

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The Big Boys are awesome! My Grandpa retired from the UP as a Conductor

Big Boy 4014 is on tour, steaming from Cedar Falls IA to Rochelle IL today (Friday).

We’re going to watch it, railside, somewhere west of Sterling IL, then leap-frog it and catch it again before it gets to Rochelle.

We’re taking my 94yr old uncle along on the ride to watch BB, he was a train lover long before I was.
 
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1998_K1500_Sub

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Caught Big Boy twice today, the first just west of Sterling near a local grain elevator off US30 that shows up on the maps as "Agnew", and then east of Sterling near the village of Nelson.

Somebody was flying a drone (imagine that) and posted this footage of Big Boy, first as BB pulled into Sterling, and then later as BB crossed the Rock River east of Sterling / just prior to Nelson.

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^^^ be sure and select the 1440 or better resolution, the image is pristine



Who doesn't love big things that move :biggrin:
 
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Supercharged111

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Gotta love the old venerable Rocketdyne F1 engine. We're talking about all these old GMC engines, but this thing here was designed and built in the 50's and 60's and used a 55,000hp gas turbine engine AS THE FUEL PUMP, to pump 414 gallons of liquid oxygen and 258 gallons of RP1(kerosene rocket fuel) per SECOND. The Saturn V first stage had five of these running at the same time and flowed enough fuel and oxidizer to empty an Olympic swimming pool every 3 minutes. Each engine generated 1,500,000 lbf of thrust.

And I got to visit the site where they tested the whole shebang. There was no elevator, it was A LOT of stairs. I can only imagine what it would have been like to see it all lit up. There was a water tank, I believe 3 million gallons, right next to the thing.
 
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