by Elrond Lawrence/photos by the author
“What the f— is a Big Boy?!?”
Incredibly, these words were hurled this summer at a member of our railfan chase group on Donner Pass near Troy, Calif., by a local resident who was none too pleased with the small caravan hiking past her property to score one of the day’s best images of Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 4014. On this cloudy July 14 afternoon, UP’s famous ambassador of the rails was powering a public fundraiser excursion from Roseville to Sparks, Nev., as part of a four-week western odyssey across Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and northern California, with a slight detour through Idaho on the return leg.
This writer wasn’t present when “the Troy incident” happened, but if I had been, I would have told her the following. “Well, ma’am, a ‘Big Boy’ is the largest operating steam locomotive in the world. It’s 132 feet long from pilot to tender, and weighs more than a million pounds. It’s one of the boldest, most exciting restoration projects of the 21st century. It’s a Union Pacific icon built by American Locomotive Company in 1941, which sealed UP’s legacy as a railroad of super-powered locomotion.”
“But beyond the train geek stuff,” I’d add, hoping to win her over before she called the sheriff, “Number 4014 is one of the world’s greatest smile machines. When it thunders past, your jaw can’t help but hang in wonder. It connects Union Pacific with the cities and small towns that the railroad passes through. It brings railroad history to life and it brings thousands of people together everywhere it goes. This is why we’re all here. The Big Boy leaves us memories and pictures that we can share for a lifetime.”
ABOVE: Three days after Union Pacific celebrated the 150th Golden Spike anniversary, 4014 and 844 steam home to Wyoming, bringing traffic to a crawl on Interstate 80 at Peterson, Utah, on May 12, 2019.
And that’s exactly what UP 4014 did in July 2024, when it returned to the West after a five-year absence to reclaim its glory and delight generations of fans old and young.
2019: The Return
In 1979, Bob Spinuzzi and I met in seventh grade, and became best pals thanks to our shared love for trains, especially those operated by Santa Fe, Union Pacific, and Southern Pacific. The DDA40X “Centennials” topped the list of our favorite locomotives, and our awe led to the talk that countless railfans have exchanged over decades — what if a Big Boy was ever revived? “Nahhh! That’s never going to happen,” we said. But what if it did?
That’s when we made the deal. If a Big Boy ever returned to action, we’d chase it along the Overland Route between Cheyenne, Wyo., and Ogden, Utah. In the years that followed, we visited a Big Boy just 30 minutes from our hometown of Fontana, Calif., at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona. The Southern California Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive History Society hosted a fantastic display of steam power from AT&SF, SP, and UP, meticulously cared for by chapter members. During every visit we’d climb the wooden steps and peer into the cab of our favorite locomotive that wore the number 4014, marveling at the beast’s massive length. This “rail giant” seemed to stretch forever.
ABOVE: Three days after Union Pacific celebrated the 150th Golden Spike anniversary, 4014 and 844 steam home to Wyoming, bringing traffic to a crawl on Interstate 80 at Peterson, Utah, on May 12, 2019.
Fast forward three decades to 2013. When the news broke that Union Pacific would reacquire a Big Boy and bring it back to life — and that Big Boy was “our” 4014 — I immediately made plans to cover the deadhead move east. The main line move began on April 28, 2014; that was the day I realized a modern-day 4-8-8-4’s power would no longer be reflected by hundred-car reefer trains, but by the enormous crowds it drew. As SD70Ms 4014 and 4884 moved the silent Big Boy over Cajon Pass, old Route 66 was enveloped in total gridlock. At Victorville, Calif., several hundred people swarmed the downtown Amtrak platforms as the 4014 was stopped for servicing. All this was for a locomotive that wasn’t yet operating.
In 2019, 40 years after Bob and I had the “What if?” conversation, the dream became real and we honored our pact. A happy circumstance found my wife, Laura, and me in Denver on May 1, the day UP 4014 would steam west over Sherman Hill for the first time since the late 1950s. We rode with Bob to downtown Cheyenne and saw an honest-to-goodness 4-8-8-4 shrouded in steam, impatiently waiting to leave town. At Harriman, we experienced our first run-by. The crew was clearly going easy on 4014, and the shot was a wide-angle scene under puffy clouds … not ideal light, but good enough — 4014 in heroic pose, faintly resembling the artwork you might find on an old Athearn “blue box” model train kit. This was not a day to be picky. We had just witnessed a Big Boy under steam on Sherman Hill.
Sadly, time constraints limited us to a brief chase, but Bob and I had already made bigger plans. Seven days later we reunited in Ogden and joined the massive crowd for UP’s Golden Spike celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion. UP 4014 and never-retired 4-8-4 844 posed together to the delight of thousands. This was real. Two days later, we chased 4014 and 844 double-heading east from Ogden up Weber and Echo canyons, a spectacle thundering up the Wasatch grade. At the summit, the sound was deafening. Now we understood the legends. The classic photographs of Eherenberger, Kratville, Kistler, Hale, and other giants had come to life. Later that day, at Evanston, Wyo., we watched Ed Dickens, senior manager of UP Heritage Operations, greet 95-year-old Merrill Transtrum, who had previously fired both 4014 and 844 in a long career with UP. Between the Wasatch assault and this timeless moment of generations sharing lives and stories, it was a day of high emotion on the Overland Route.
ABOVE: Even before the Big Boy was operational, fans showed their excitement when the 4-8-8-4 was moved east through Victorville, Calif., on April 28, 2014.
Two months would pass before 4014 went where no Big Boy had steamed before — east of North Platte, Neb. In July and August 2019, the 4-8-8-4 began a 1,500-mile Midwest tour in eastern Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois. The trip included a 21-car covered hopper move, a 15-car excursion from Omaha, Neb., to benefit the UP Museum, plus photo ops with vintage Iowa Traction electrics and Iowa Northern E-units, Chicago & North Western coal towers, and a display in West Chicago, Ill. And still more was in store for the year of the Big Boy.
In October 2019, 4014 embarked on its first trip to Southern California, a homecoming trip to power a public fundraiser for the R&LHS “Rail Giants” museum that originally traded the 4-8-8-4 to UP. The weekend of October 12–13 saw 4014 (with auxiliary tenders and two diesels) power an impressive 26-car passenger special from West Colton to Barstow via Cajon Pass. Saturday’s eastbound run up Cajon and the high desert was a surreal sequel of 4014’s deadhead move in 2014 … but of course, this time the Big Boy was fully alive and drawing even bigger crowds.
Running on BNSF Railway (former Santa Fe) trackage, the excursion loosely followed Route 66 to Barstow, where passengers detrained, and the train continued to UP’s yard in Yermo for an overnight stay. The next morning, Sunday, 4014 greeted a horde of fans at Daggett before loading passengers at Barstow and returning the beautiful yellow streamliner to the Los Angeles Basin. If that wasn’t enough new Big Boy mileage, 4014 and train would roll east a few days later on the former SP Sunset Route through Beaumont Hill, Palm Springs, and the Colorado Desert to Arizona and beyond…
ABOVE: UP 4014 West winds through the hills west of Jungo, Nev., on July 9, 2024.