Big Boy 4014 chugs in for stop in NLR
It is difficult to fathom calling Big Boy 4014 anything other than Big Boy.
But other appellations also come to mind when seeing the largest operating steam locomotive in the world for the first time or gawking at it for an hour, as hundreds of people young and old did on a sunny Thursday at the Union Pacific locomotive overhaul and maintenance facility in North Little Rock. “Awesome” was popular. It was declared so by a boy perched on his father’s shoulders as they sauntered toward it and the child
“It’s just a monster. It’s huge. It’s exciting, especially when they blow the whistle.”
LORITA GOOLSBY, who traveled from southeast Missouri with her husband, Tom, to see Big Boy 4014
caught his first sight of Big Boy.
“Awesome” was the same word Lorita Goolsby used after she and her husband, Tom, traveled more than four hours to take in the 1.2 million pounds of black metal.
“We came all the way from southeast Missouri to see it,” she said. “It’s awesome.”
Even at rest, the hulking mass of black metal exudes power, with white wafts of steam emanating from the top of the locomotive 17 feet above the ground.
The behemoth was specifically designed for Union Pacific in the early 1940s to haul 3,200 tons of freight spread among the 125 rail cars it pulled between Ogden, Utah, and Cheyenne, Wyo., during 20 years of service, which ended in 1961.
Everything about the Big Boy is mammoth. Its 14-wheel tender once carried 56,000 pounds of coal to fuel the engine, which today runs on oil and produces 7,000 horsepower. The engine’s water capacity is 25,000 gallons.
At 133 feet long, Big Boy 4014 is almost twice as long as the 74-foot-long diesel locomotives Union Pacific uses today.
“It weighs as much as three of the conventional locomotives,” engineer Ed Dickens said.
It’s so long that its frames were hinged, or articulated, to allow the big engine to safely negotiate curves.
“It’s just a monster,” Goolsby said. “It’s huge. It’s exciting, especially when they blow the whistle.”
Big Boy 4014 racked up more than 1 million miles in its 20 years of operation.
A total of 25 of the Big Boy models were built. Big Boy 4014 was reclaimed from a California museum in 2013 and underwent a multiyear restoration at the railroad’s steam shop in Cheyenne.
“This machine is a very iconic locomotive,” said Dickens, a 53-year-old Colorado resident. “People are fascinated with the story. The story of the Big Boy locomotive, the locomotive and the long-held belief that it would never run again. It was just too big. It can’t really go anywhere, it’s too heavy for all the bridges.”
Union Pacific resurrected the beast to help mark the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
The Pacific Railway Act, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862, chartered Union Pacific to build a railroad line west from the Missouri River. Central Pacific Railroad of California was authorized to build a line east from Sacramento.
The legislation granted each railroad 6,400 acres and up to $48,000 in government bonds for each mile completed.
“And so, The Great Race began,” in the words of Union Pacific’s online history.
The railheads of both railroads met seven years later, on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Summit, Utah, uniting the nation from coast to coast. The occasion was marked by the driving in of a golden spike.
The Big Boy 4014 is on its fourth and final trip of the year, a two-month, 5,000-mile tour that began in Cheyenne, Wyo., and went to Utah, Nevada, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. It will resume its journey at 8 a.m. today with brief stops in Conway, Morrilton, Russellville and Ozark before stopping for the night in Van Buren. (This was the first trip by any Big Boy to Arkansas, according to Union Pacific.)
It leaves Arkansas on Saturday and continues through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Colorado before returning to Cheyenne on Nov. 27.
“This is what makes it special for us,” Dickens said. “We spent 2½ years rebuilding this locomotive from the ground up. Throughout that time, we knew it was going to be a popular machine. We knew that because for the past 30 years, people have been asking Union Pacific when are you going to restore a Big Boy locomotive. That time is now.”
Goolsby was still beaming as she and her husband wrapped up their visit to return to their home in Zalma, Mo.
“I got some awesome pictures,” she said. “I’ve got a short video of it blowing the whistle and its steam. It was worth the trip.”