Cheyenne, WY: Big Boy 4004 Static Display and Stormwater Problem

(Satellite)

Joss Moni posted
that is at Holiday Park in Cheyenne, WY correct. been there to eat lunch many times

Curt Schnitzer: August 1st 1985.

Bruce Schindler: Curt Schnitzer I remember it well. Massive hail with it.

James Hickey: This is my photograph, used here without my permission from the official UP Steam website. [It is a shame he did not provide the URL of the appropriate webpage.]

James Bowen: Flooding in Cheyenne, how?

Terina Templeton: James Bowen massive rain! My car was all but floating down the street in downtown Cheyenne at about this time period. We had a tornado come through and then torrential rains! Everything was flooded! We lived close to Crow Creek and the water lines in our parked pickup was higher than the wheels. My car was at my sister in laws not far from the hospital and the streets were filled curb to curb plus some. It was like a river running past the houses! Holiday Park Lake was OVER, OVER full and this Big Boy is not far from the edge of the lake. This is really what it looked like. There were lives lost during this flood...

Dave Wallace: Roller bearings can be replaced....but no real need to....just pump them fulla grease.....

[Steam locomotives could go through water that is a lot deeper than the traction motors of a diesel. I've read that as long as the water is below the firebox, it is OK. And it looks like it is at least a foot below the firebox.]

Christopher Steingrube: This was a few years ago. And if memory serves, this big boy was a parts bin for 3985's resto. She's going nowhere, regrettably.

Lee Miles: Christopher Steingrube to the trained eye you can see all the missing parts, some replaced with fakes. Like the compressors behind the pilot.

Sylvester Rodriquez: Isn't Holiday park an old lake bed? That flood was around 1985. There is archive media coverage of that storm on YouTube.

Note that the fence was almost under water in 1985.

John Dillon, Sep 2022

Street View, Dec 2021

The sign on the fence.

John Fwu, May 2022

Tim Tharp, Aug 2024

The Holiday Park may have been designed to be a retention pond. On a satellite image, everything in the depression contour can be cleaned with a good pressure washer and, in the case of the 4004, some grease. I wonder when they filled in the lower lobe of the lake to make land for more parking and courts.

1961/64 Cheyenne North Quad @ 24,000