November 13, 2019 – Union Pacific 4014 “Big Boy” locomotive leads it’s train northbound on the Little Rock Subdivision at Perla, Arkansas, during Union Pacific’s Great Race Across the Southwest tour with the restored engine.

Interesting Fact: The entire Big Boy Fleet #4000-4024 would have cost over 100 million dollars to build today!

UP ordered 20 class 4000 engines in 1941 and then 5 more in 1944 at $265,174 per engine. Adjusted for inflation this totaled a whopping $107,620,056.25, each engine individually running $4,304,802.25!

November 13, 2019 – Union Pacific 4014 passes a northbound BNSF tank Train as it heads back through the Locust Street Yard after turning its train on the Van Buren Wye at Little Rock, Arkansas. They turned the train for its display Thursday in Little Rock and Friday morning it will continue its move as it heads for its next overnight stop in Van Buren, Arkansas.

Union Pacific has billed this move as The Great Race Across the Southwest as the train is making a circle around the southwest over a six week or so period hitting Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

November 13, 2019 – What a day!! I chased Union Pacific’s 4014 “Big Boy” from Prescott to Little Rock, Arkansas and couldn’t have asked for better weather! The cold really made the steam and smoke pop! Here we see 4014 as it departs Prescott early in the morning, after a slight delay to let two trains pass it. There’s just something about a steam locomotive when it pokes its nose out of a cloud of steam!

November 12, 2019 – Union Pacific’s “Big Boy” 4014 puts out a huge plume of steam in the cold November air as it departs Hope, Arkansas and heads north on the UP Little Rock Subdivision on its way to Prescott, AR where it will tie down for the night. I’m doing my first chase on the “Big Boy” today and tomorrow as it heads for Little Rock, AR.

According to Wikipedia: The Union Pacific Big Boy is a type of simple articulated 4-8-8-4 steam locomotive manufactured by the American Locomotive Company between 1941 and 1944 and operated by the Union Pacific Railroad in revenue service until 1959.

The 25 Big Boy locomotives were built to haul freight over the Wasatch mountains between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyoming. In the late 1940s, they were reassigned to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where they hauled freight over Sherman Hill to Laramie, Wyoming. They were the only locomotives to use a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement: four-wheel leading truck for stability entering curves, two sets of eight driving wheels and a four-wheel trailing truck to support the large firebox.

Eight Big Boys survive, most on static display at museums across the country. This one, No. 4014, was re-acquired by Union Pacific and restored to operating condition in 2019, regaining the title as the largest and most powerful operating steam locomotive in the world.