Thousands of people turned out on June 8 when the largest operating steam locomotive in the world passed through Northeast Ohio en route to Philadelphia and its role in America’s 250th birthday celebration on July 4.
Soon, the Big Boy, as Union Pacific’s 4014 is nicknamed, will return by a slightly different route to its home in Cheyenne, Wyoming. It will pass through this area the morning of July 13, making a half-hour early-afternoon whistle stop in Rocky River.
With 30 miles of Norfolk-Southern tracks running east to west through Lake County, there will be plenty of places to see and photograph the 1.2 million-pound steam engine. Once one of 25 Big Boys, built early in the 1940s to carry heavy war-time loads over the Rocky Mountains, the 4014 remains the only Big Boy still operating. It took several years and cost Union Pacific $10 million to restore the locomotive and convert its fuel source to oil. It had used 10 tons of coal per hour to carry loads as heavy as 3,600 tons over the mountains…