Anyone traveling along Route 16 in rural Montgomery County, IL, must have been confused. At every railroad grade crossing, groups of people wandered in circles, eyes cast downward toward the train tracks, seeming oblivious to the world around them. Was this some sort of mass hysteria, or perhaps a zombie apocalypse?
If they had passed by a few minutes earlier, they would have felt the ground shake, seen black smoke swirling into the air, and heard a mournful, animalistic howl as 1.2 million pounds of steam locomotive raced down the tracks toward St. Louis, after stopping in Nokomis, IL. The zombies were looking for coins placed on the tracks to be squashed by the train as mementos.
Any steam locomotive attracts the curious, but the appearance of the Union Pacific Big Boy, the largest steam locomotive ever produced, is cause for celebration. A massive party turned the small town of Nokomis, population 2,142, into a teeming metropolis. Police cars and fire trucks, vehicles parked on every street for blocks surrounding the train tracks, food and souvenir vendors, and thousands of people waited patiently to see the train come through, making a brief stop for supplies before continuing on its Midwestern tour. Nokomis looked much like it had in its heyday, before passenger service stopped on the line in 1959.
Union Pacific Railroad acquired twenty-five Big Boys, beginning in 1941. The monster locomotive, producing 7000 hp, was designed to haul heavy loads across mountainous terrain, with most operating between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah. Eighty-five feet long, the locomotive itself was the length of two city buses, and with its tenders, the total length was 132 feet. The total weight of 1,200,000 pounds is heavier than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The locomotive’s articulating design, which allowed it to bend in two pieces, enabled it to navigate turns more easily.
Union Pacific 4014, the only operational Big Boy, was built in 1941 and served the railroad until 1961, traveling more than 1 million miles. 4014, along with seven other Big Boy locomotives, would all be relegated to static display at museums across the country; the remainder were scrapped.
In 2013, anticipating the 100th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, Union Pacific reacquired the locomotive from the RailGiants train museum in Pomona, California, and set about restoring it to operational condition, converting it to run on fuel oil instead of coal. The reassembly of the locomotive was completed mainly in 2018, with safety testing of the boiler conducted in 2019. With restoration complete, on May 1, 2019, 4014 moved under power for the first time in nearly 60 years. The restoration is reported to have cost the railroad more than $4 million.
4014 would go on to participate in the Golden Spike ceremony commemorating the completion of the transcontinental railway and tour the country in a limited excursion service.
For more information on the Union Pacific Railroad’s steam program, visit their website:
www.up.com/heritage/steam/index.htm
Static displays of Big Boy locomotives can be seen at the following locations:
Holliday Park in Cheyenne, Wyoming
http://www.rgusrail.com/wyup4004.html
The Forney Museum of Transportation in Denver, Colorado
The National Museum of Transportation in St. Louis, Missouri
Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania
https://www.nps.gov/stea/index.htm
Museum of the American Railroad in Frisco, Texas
http://www.historictrains.org/
National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin
Kenefick Park in Omaha, Nebraska
