When Big Boys were delivered, they made the Union Pacific famous in the homes of model railroaders worldwide through the false claim of being the title of biggest, widest, highest, more powerful locomotive in the world. Among their other qualities, they performed very well.
ALCo designers, always looking for a way to eliminate traffic jams in the Nebraska Corridor and Sherman Hill, proposed to the Union Pacific the Dread of Joints, the Fright of Flanges: a Triplex, with three groups of driving wheels based on the Big Boy.
It seems that the “Huge Boy” denomination comes from a sign penciled on the basic project. Unfortunately the sign was made with a copying pencil, and it was not possible to erase it, so this monster went down to history with this name. The prototype was built in 1943-44 and began its service on the lines starting from Cheyenne, hauling very heavy trains with ease.
The effects on its passage on the rails, however, were devastating. After the passage of the Huge Boy, a dedicated MoW train followed its train with the specific duty of fixing broken rail joints and tightening loose tie plates.
This problem made the use of this monster highly uneconomic, even for a rich company such as Union Pacific. The Huge Boy was gradually relegated to helper duty on some very steep but absolutely straight routes. In late 1946, as war traffic declined, Union Pacific decided to retire the beast and to use it as a source of spare parts for the smaller Big Boys.
It seems that the only ones that remember this machine are a guy named Teddy Browsman, which was the engineer of the Huge Boy during its entire life in service, and Lionel Kerwosky, his fireman, which, when he recalled the Huge Boy, never missed to emphasize the voracious appetite for fuel and water of the locomotive.
A final curiosity: when the locomotive was retired and its fire was put out for the last time, all the personnel of the Cheyenne engine shop organized a dinner insid the firebox of the Huge Boy. Someone also state that the dinner was followed by a dancing party, but most observers think that these memories are the effect of the enormous amount of booze consumed during the farewell party.