Big Boy Steam Locomotive Rolls Into PA For America’s 250th: When To See It

Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, is a major stop on the coast-to-coast tour of Big Boy No. 4014, the last of the great steam engines that opened the West, in commemoration of America’s 250th anniversary.

Big Boy 4014 is the world’s largest operating steam locomotive and the only one of eight remaining Big Boys in existence today that is still in operation. Called the “Giants of the West,” the massive steam engines were built in the 1940s to haul heavy freight over the steep Wasatch grades between Utah and Wyoming.

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The Semiquincentennial tour marks the first time Big Boy has steamed across the Mississippi River and into the Ohio Valley since it was built in Schenectady, New York, and delivered to Union Pacific Railroad in 1941.

Big Boy will be prominent in Philly for the July 4-5 celebration, but will also make major stops in Scranton from June 15-16 and Altoona from July 9-10, Union Pacific Railroad has announced.

Several whistle stops — 15- to 30-minute stops where people can line up to see the 1.2 million-pound, 133-foot locomotive — are also planned elsewhere in Pennsylvania:

• June 9: North East
• June 13: Nicholson
• June 17-30: Scranton, Steamtown National Historic Site, locomotive maintenance (park admission required)
• July 2: Reading, Pottstown
• July 7: Lebanon
• July 8: Lewistown, Altoona
• July 11: Cresson, Leetsdale, Historic Horseshoe Curve; ticketed event.

As part of the tour, the Union Pacific Museum will be selling tickets to ride in vintage passenger cars pulled by Big Boy through the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania on June 14. Interested riders can purchase tickets here.

Traveling behind the historic steam engine on the coast-to-coast tour will be several historical passenger cars from Union Pacific’s Heritage Fleet, along with two commemorative locomotives:

• No. 1616 Abraham Lincoln locomotive, which commemorates the country’s 16th president and Union Pacific’s founder,
• No. 1776 – America250, which features the emblem of the America250 Semiquincentennial Commission, the national nonpartisan organization established by Congress to lead the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The eastern leg of the tour includes major events and more than 50 whistle stops in 10 states. Major public displays like the three in Pennsylvania will also be held in Omaha; Chicago; Buffalo, New York; Fostoria, Ohio; and St. Louis.

Whistle stops are also planned in Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, Missouri, Kansas and Colorado before it returns home to Wyoming on July 29. The western leg of the Big Boy coast-to-coast tour concluded on April 29.

The eastern portion of the tour will operate across the Norfolk Southern network, marking a historic collaboration between two of the nation’s storied railroads and bringing the legendary locomotive back to communities that helped power America’s industrial rise, Union Pacific said in a

“This tour celebrates our company’s rich 164-year history, our nation’s amazing story and the people who have helped build our great country and our railroad,” Union Pacific CEO Jim Vena said in a statement.

The route through the Ohio Valley, Pennsylvania and the Northeast reflects the historic role railroads played in shaping America’s economic heartland, connecting factories, ports and population centers and fueling the nation’s growth across generations, the railroads said.

For nearly 200 years, Norfolk Southern and its predecessor railroads have served these corridors, helping move the people and goods that built the modern United States.