Just an amazing piece of human engineering to design, fabricate and put that beast together and it all works in engineering harmony.
Terrific it's been kept and not scrapped at some point in time and lost to history.
I’d like to know how they cast and machined all the parts.
Here's a video showing the construction of a reasonably large British locomotive of the 1930's. The big USA manufacturers were more modernized and were typically building much bigger locomotives, like the Big Boy, but the processes were much the same.
https://youtu.be/NPACAt8aE4U?si=eMwzVNQdPsfwkloR
Just to boggle the modern mind, I will say that Alco, Baldwin and Lima were building whole "fleets" of locomotives simultaneously, and even the biggest engines were built in a matter of just a few months ..... or less!
Once you have a full blueprint of a completed locomotive and its build
Specs and a crew of
Machinists you can get it done fast. The 1st build takes
The longest, then testing.
Forgot to add, all the Moulds for the castings. Basically have it setup as an erector set on an assembly line, piece of cake as long as the supplies were coming in.
Not quite as simple as that, as they'd also likely be simultaneously building half a dozen or more other engines of different classes and sizes with different specifications, either singly or in smaller groups, so the machinists and machine tooling would need be switched often between different jobs and same goes for the casting and forging processes.
As example, in 1921 Baldwin produced hundreds of different locomotives in several different sizes and gauges, for many different Railroads and even different Countries, including almost 100 in three different classes for Argentina alone. Late in the fall of 1921 Baldwin took an order from the Southern Pacific Railroad for 50 heavy freight haulers of the 2-10-2 class engine and had them all delivered by mid-Spring 1922, all while building many other locomotives of different sizes and gauges for many different customers. These SP "Sante Fe" Type 2-10-2's, while not as big as a Big Boy Articulated, were in fact truly huge locomotives by any common standard!
Perhaps I should even add to the complexity of these astonishing accomplishments by mentioning that these large locomotive builders continued with unbelievable locomotive output during WWI & WWII, while also retooling and regearing to produce such diverse war material as M1917 Rifles by the millions, Sherman Tanks and a vast assortment of other needful material requiring the casting, forging and machining capabilities and capacities of the heaviest of industries!
I am quite certain that America is incapable of such feats of manufacturing here now, 100 years hence!!!
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