A Gift from Santa - Revell Big Boy Steam Locomotive

This year Santa really outdid himself. Well, to be precise, it was actually Rudy, the red nosed reindeer, not Santa ;) Anyway, among the lots of very nice presents under the Christmas tree, I was happy to find a model steam locomotive: Revell's item no. 02165, the Big Boy locomotive. Revell is one of the leading companies in modeling and among planes, ships, submarines, cars, engines and other models, it has some really nice steam locomotives. Revell's item no. 02165 is the American Big Boy locomotive on H0 scale (1:87).

Union Pacific's Big Boys were some of the largest, longest and most powerful steam locomotives ever built. They were capable of pulling over 4000 tons of weight up on steep mountain grades and they were also quite stable at the speed of 130 km/h. Because of their enormous size, the Big Boys were articulated steam locomotives with 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement (no other steamers had this wheel arrangement). They were very reliable and safe. 25 of them have been built between 1941 and 1944, grouped into two classes: class 1 with locomotives X4000 - X4019 and class 2 with locomotives X4020 - X4024.

Assembling Revell's Big Boy requires much time and patience. Rated at difficulty level 3 (out of 5), it is made up of 87 pieces which need to be painted in several colors and glued together. Rudy took care of everything and also brought me the 5 basic paints, two brushes and glue required for assembling the model. Thanks, Rudy!

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Links:

Union Pacific's Big Boy collection video

Revell's official site