Almost exactly five years ago, I published a post entitled "An Important Event for Railroad Fans..." In it, I described a gigantic locomotive, the Union Pacific "Big Boy" that was manufactured in the 1940's by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) in my home town. In fact, I just measured it on Google Maps and my home was just 1.2 miles from the birthplace of these giant machines.
ALCO built a total of 25 of the so-called 4000-series locomotives (numbered from 4000 through 4024). They last saw service in July, 1959. But the current Union Pacific management has a sense of history. They have a "Legacy Operations" organization that collects and restores rolling stock and locomotives that defined the railroad. This is the group that undertook the massive job of restoring engine 4014 during the last five years. They had hauled it from Pomona, California to Cheyenne, Wyoming after bartering with some lesser locomotives to get it back from a museum operation.
Five years of effort have paid off handsomely. This weekend, 4014 took to the rails again under its own power for the first time in nearly 60 years. Accompanied by Union Pacific Challenger Number 844, the two mighty machines are headed for Ogden, Utah, where they will participate in the celebration honoring the 150th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad.
It's been fun following the train on Facebook pages devoted to its memory, the memory of the individual locomotives, or the event in Ogden. YouTube is flooded with great videos of the two giants as they roll toward their celebratory goal. And I'm damn proud of what my home town was capable of producing in its heyday!
My heartfelt thanks go out to the management of the Union Pacific for supporting this effort and the men and women who labored so hard to see it succeed.
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