Big Boy 4012 - a photo on Flickriver

Big Boy 4012

            Around the end of 2018, I was fortunate enough to get to see Big Boy 4005 which is out in Denver Colorado. That was the first time I laid eyes on one of these giant locomotives. Well, around mid-May 2019, I decided to travel the short 3 hour drive up to Scranton, Pennsylvania to see Steamtown, a National Historic Site ran by the Park Service. I'd been talking about going up there for years and finally just got in the car and made it happen! I'm so glad I did! I was finally able to see their Big Boy number 4012 which is on static display.

The Big Boy locomotive was originally named/classed as "Wasatch" which signifies the mountain range that they were originally designed to traverse. But someone wrote "Big Boy" on the front of the first unfinished model and the name stuck.....and for good reason. The Union Pacific Railroad ultimately had 25 of these giants built by the American Locomotive Company, with number 4012 being built in 1941. There are now only 8 left around the United States, with the rest having been scrapped back in the day. Engine 4012 weighs a whopping 1,250,000 pounds (that's 625 US Tons!). This locomotive worked for 21 years hauling freight between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah, logging over 1,000,000 miles before retirement in 1962.

Union Pacific just undertook a complete restoration on Big Boy 4014 out in Ogden, UT and drove it out to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the first Transcontinental Railroad. I was rather bummed that I wasn't able to make it out to see that engine running in-person, but I'll take seeing this beauty as a close second!

Taken in: United States / Pennsylvania / Scranton (show map)

Taken on: June 2, 2019

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