November 13, 2019 – Union Pacific 4014 Big Boy heads across the Ouachita River at Arkadelphia, Arkansas as it races north on the Little Rock Subdivision with it’s passenger train on UP’s Race Across the Southwest event.
Did you know: Union Pacific placed two orders for Big Boys. In 1941, they ordered 20. In 1944, five more were constructed. Their territory was basically the 435 miles between Cheyenne, Wyoming and Ogden, Utah. As a class, Big Boys ran until 1959, with some coming out of service earlier. Additionally, from 1941 to 1948, Big Boys only worked the 163 miles from Ogden to Green River, Wyoming.
From 1948 to 1959, they did not travel west of Green River. In their final years, the Big Boys only worked the 58 miles between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming. Every one of the first 20 Big Boys tallied over one million miles of service. The last five had all traveled over 800,000 miles when they were retired. All this on a piece of railroad just over 400 miles long. For the record, #4017 traveled 1,052,072 miles during its life.