OMAHA, Neb. — Union Pacific Big Boy 4-8-8-4 No. 4014 will be home in time for Thanksgiving — arriving at the Cheyenne shops on Nov. 27 after it completes the tour it begins today.
In an email to members of the Union Pacific Steam Club, railroad officials announced that after Big Boy’s Southwest Tour stops in Texas at the end of October, it will continue through Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming throughout November.
Full details are available on the railroad’s schedule page.
Trains Editor Jim Wrinn is following Big Boy from Wyoming to Nevada in the coming days and is streaming live through Facebook.
The Train Ride that Never Happened
This is a story that took place in Fort Worth at the Texas & Pacific Rail Road Station in the summer of 1952. On a Sunday afternoon my mother and father and me took my mothers mother ,grandmother, to the train station to board a train to Houston, Texas. I was about 10 years old. I have always loved trains and admired the railroad men, engineers, brakemen, and conductors. My mother’s grandfather, my great grandfather was a train engineer for the Santa Fe railroad in Temple, Texas between 1875 and 1900 and later in Houston, Texas. He was a member of the Knights of Epiphany in Temple. I have his sword and his framed photo in his Knights uniform. Just setting some background info.
On that day after putting my grandmother on the train and before it pulled out of the station, my dad and I walk down to see the new diesel engine, new technology at that time. While we were looking over the engine the engineer poked he head out of the door and invited us up to see how the new technology worked. How the big diesel engines powered alternators or generators, not sure which. And how they powered the electric motors which powered the drive wheels. It was amazing.
As my dad and I were finished with the tour and getting ready to get off of the engine, the engineer ask my father if he could drive to Dallas station to pick me up. If so he would let me ride in the engine to Dallas to see how every think worked. The engine, signals, crossings, etc. It would have been a wonderful experience. My dad said he could and would. The engineer ask me if I would like to do that.
I thought for a minute and got scared and said no. At that very moment I felt full regret turning down this opportunity.
This turned out to be a hard lesson about when you turn down an opportunity.
That you will never get that opportunity again.
Over my life time I have found that lesson to be very true. I have several encounters with trains and train men and have told my sad story but company rules have always kept me from experiencing a ride in a diesel engine. I have tried just about everything to get a ride. So far with out fail I have not gotten one. I am now 77 years old and totally missed the opportunity for the experience of a train ride.
So I am writing the story so others might evaluate their opportunities and not make the same mistake I made. It has plagued me all my life
C J Fertitta
Kilgore, Texas
How is it that this trip goes in a great circle around Dallas – Ft. Worth and doesn’t come here?
One would think that Dallas, Fort Worth, and Austin would get a look-see. Possibly New Orleans. But there is always next year. Maybe the Pacific NW to the Bay Area will be on their bucket list. Regardless, I am grateful for the UP and their dedication to have this beauty road-worthy, and taking it over several thousand miles to show America the power of the Iron Horse.
I plan to be in KC to see that beast!
Sorry Mr McWilliams. Hope,Ar is less then an hours drive from the Oklahoma border.
Usual disclaimers apply. I’m just a worn out truck driver.
That blank space you left out is called Oklahoma!
My apologies I didn’t read.