The History of My Experience with the Fireboxes of the Pennsylvania Rail Road

About a decade ago, I was the preeminent expert on the fireboxes of the old Pennsylvania Rail Road Steam Engines.  I even wrote the book on it, two of them in fact, called ‘The Fireboxes of the Pennsylvania Rail Road, 1883-1922’ and then later the same title but ‘1925-1957’.  They are available on Amazon and have sold almost 25 copies each, but are considered the definitive work on the subject.

As a result of this research, I was called out to California by Union Pacific when they were looking to get one of their Big Boys back up and running.  I was a part of the team that both planned the rebuild the firebox as we made the switch from coal to oil. 

The highlight of the restoration was when the engineer let me write ‘Big Boy’ on the front of the locomotive during a testing day.  There are pictures and I can tell which one is my handwriting, but it is kind of like how the different people who wear the Mickey Mouse costume are supposed to sign their name the same.  But I still know which one is mine.