2023 ScheduleIn 2023, Big Boy No. 4014 visited Omaha on the Home Run Express during June. To be notified of future steam schedule updates, join the Official Union Pacific Steam Club at http://up.com/SteamClub !
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Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 will return to the rails this week for a nearly month-long tour of Wyoming, Nebraska, and Iowa as it travels to Omaha, where it will be on display for the NCAA Men's College World Series in mid-June.
4014 restoration cost, but Wrinn estimated at least $4 million based on similar restorations. The result will be one of just six to eight steam engines still operational on mainline U.S. railroad tracks. “Living Legend” Northern No. 844 has remained in service since 1944.
The Big Boys were built for power. They did the work of three smaller engines, pulling 120-car, 3800 ton freight trains at forty miles per hour in the mountains of Utah and Wyoming. With power, though, comes weight - larger cylinders, pistons, drive rods, boiler and firebox.
Wyoming. The Big Boy locomotives weighed more than one million pounds and were 132 feet, 9 inches long. Stood on its end, one would be the equivalent of a 13-story building. Each one cost approximately $265,000 to build, or about $4.4 million in today's money.
If the diesel engine referenced is the modern diesel electric locomotive that has been accompanying 4014 in its travels, my understanding is that Union Pacific utilizes it to assist with overall fuel efficiency and to provide regenerative braking. This helps with operating costs and provides a better level of safety.
Of the eighteen built, three survive and are on display in Minnesota: No. 225 at Proctor, No. 227 at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth and No. 229 at Two Harbors.
A group of Union Pacific employees volunteered their services to restore the locomotive to running condition in 1981. In 2022, Union Pacific donated Challenger No.3985 to the non-profit Railroading Heritage of Midwest America (RRHMA) who plans to restore it back to operating condition.
Its girth requires a 4-8-8-4 wheel configuration to keep it rock-steady on the rails. With a puny 7,000 horsepower, Big Boys had a maximum tractive power of 135,375 pounds, all to pull huge loads of freight across steep grades in Utah's Wasatch Mountains and the Rockies.
The Big Boy No. 4014 steam locomotive rolled out of a Union Pacific restoration shop in Cheyenne for a big debut after five years of restoration. It then headed toward Utah as part of a yearlong tour to commemorate the Transcontinental Railroad's 150th anniversary.