Big Boy 4014 May Make Its First Coast-To-Coast Run For America’s 250th

Nothing quite says “spirit of America” like the Big Boy 4014, all 1.2 million pounds of the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. 

Big Boy had a light schedule for 2025, with just a single excursion to Colorado. Possibly that’s because Union Pacific is planning for a blowout schedule in 2026. 

That’s according to Union Pacific President Jim Vena, who told trade journal TrainsPro that he wants Big Boy 4014 to ride the rails from coast-to-coast next year to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

“It’s a little complicated,” Vena told TrainsPro. “But I think it would be a great, great historical movement for America’s 250th birthday to move that steam engine, the biggest operating steam engine in the world, across the country. I think it’d be real cool.”

Longer than two city buses end-to-end and weighing more than a Boeing 747, Big Boy was one of 25 such engines built during World War II at the American Locomotive Co.’s Schenectady, New York, plant to ensure America could haul heavy equipment as needed over the steeply graded Wasatch Mountains.

The train operated primarily between Cheyenne and Ogden during its revenue years and was retired in 1961. 

The train has gone on tour numerous times in Western states since its 2019 restoration but has never been farther east than Chicago.

If the transcontinental trip is realized, it would be the first time Big Boy has ever returned to the East Coast since it was built in 1941.

Behind The Scenes Effort

A lot is already happening behind the scenes to get Big Boy ready for its 2026 excursion. 

Union Pacific spokesman Mike Jaixen said he could not discuss any of Big Boy’s 2026 plans other than to say, “We’re still in the planning process for determining what is possible in 2026,” and that the train would “return to the rails in a big way in 2026 to celebrate America’s 250th.”

Union Pacific Heritage Operations Chief Engineer Ed Dickens did have some interesting things to say about the plans in a July Q&A Union Pacific put out for Big Boy fans. 

In it, Dickens noted that work has already been underway for quite some time to get Big Boy ready for the occasion. 

These types of trips require more than just the work of the Steam Team, Dickens added. It takes multiple teams across Union Pacific to plan out each whistle-stop along the way, as well as ensure the locomotive fits into existing freight operations. 

The Steam Team, meanwhile, is tasked with ensuring that Big Boy is mechanically sound for the journey, including any upgrades that the big locomotive needs. 

“It’s a great masterpiece of teamwork and cooperation to make it all happen,” Dickens said. 

Historic Engine, With Modern Upgrades

Dickens’ team has also been steadily modernizing certain aspects of Big Boy to improve its operation and maintenance. 

Among the most recent improvements was the addition of Positive Train Control (PTC) to the steam locomotive in 2024, so that it can operate solo on the rails where that is required. That would likely include any trips to the East Coast.

Positive Train Control was part of the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act, which set a deadline of 2020 for the systems. They are meant to help step in and stop collisions caused by human operator error, such as missing a red light.

The legislation requiring PTC followed several high-profile crashes, including the 2008 Chatsworth Metrolink crash near Los Angeles, where it was determined the train’s engineer had been sending and receiving text messages seconds before his train ran through a red signal and collided head-on with a freight train.

The resulting crash killed 25 people and injured 135 in what authorities said then was the worst train accident since 1993.

Other improvements to Big Boy have made maintenance tasks easier while not significantly changing the steam engine’s historic nature.

“For example, we have made modifications for adding oil lube through a special outside oil fill, similar to adding oil to a diesel locomotive,” Dickens said. "This saves another trip under the locomotive when we can do that work outside, in a standing position. 

“We have also designed a fueling system that eliminates the need to stand atop the huge Big Boy tender,” he continued. “We can now easily take on fuel while standing safely on the ground.”

As Big As The Track Allows

At the time Big Boy was constructed, the train was built as tall and as wide as bridges and tunnels of the day allowed. It was also as long as practical for the curves had to navigate at 133 feet long and 15 feet, 4 inches wide. 

The designs for Big Boy began before Pearl Harbor, according to volunteer Paul Guercio, who is among the former Union Pacific personnel who work on Big Boy and is sometimes present during UP Steam Shop tours in Cheyenne.

“People could kind of see things coming up, and they could see they were going to need to haul a lot of freight out to the West Coast and back in both directions,” he explained to Cowboy State Daily during a Steam Shop tour last year.

Twenty of the Big Boys were stationed in Green River, ideal positioned for the eventual trip over the mountainous terrain between Evanston, Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah. 

In 1944, five more Big Boys were built because there was so much train traffic. By then, diesel engines were beginning to replace steam engines, but at that point in time, all the available diesel engines were going into the war effort.

Big Boy’s first name was actually supposed to be Wasatch, dreamed up by the public relations department because it was going to go over the steep Wasatch Mountains.

But a machinist in the factory had a better idea. He wrote Big Boy in chalk on the front of the steam engine, and that’s the name that ultimately stuck. 

Big Boy 4014 was the third engine on the last Big Boy Run, and retired in 1961.

After that, it went to RailGiants Train Museum in Pomona, California, until 2013. That is when Union Pacific returned it to Cheyenne for a multi-year restoration to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion in 1869.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.