A massive 80-year-old steam engine will travel through eastern Idaho next week
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MONTPELIER — An eight-decade-old train engine will soon make its way through eastern Idaho.
Big Boy No. 4014, a steam engine that went into service in 1941, is currently on a tour of the western states. Its journey started at its home base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on June 30. It has gone all the way to Roseville, California, and is now on its way back to Cheyenne, expected to arrive on July 26.
On Monday, it will leave Utah and enter Idaho, stopping for 15 minutes in Soda Springs, and will then park overnight in Montpelier.
While the engine will be visible to the public at its stop in Soda Springs at the city’s Main Street Crossing at around 3:15 p.m., it may not be in Montpelier. Union Pacific has not decided where in the railyard the Big Boy will park.
For people who want to see the train and are able to make a short trip, the Big Boy will be on display and open to the public in Ogden, Utah at the Ogden Union Station at 2501 Wall Avenue on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. On Sunday, it will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission will be free to the public on both days.
The Big Boy No. 4014 is a behemoth compared to modern-day diesel engines. Created to “conquer mountains”, the engine is 132 feet long and weighs 1.2 million pounds, compared to a typical diesel engine’s 75 feet of length and 400,000 pounds.
Built exclusively for the Union Pacific Railroad, there were only twenty-five Big Boys built. There are only seven found on display around the country.
This engine operated from 1941 until 1961, retiring at 1,031,205 miles traveled. Union Pacific re-acquired the hulking steam engine from the RailGiants Museum in Pomona, California, in 2013 and then returned it to service in May 2019 after restoring it to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.