Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 is set to return to the tracks this summer for a “West Coast Steam Tour.”
This year’s tour kicks off June 26 from Cheyenne, Wyoming, and celebrates Union Pacific’s 160th anniversary. The venerable locomotive is visiting the Pacific Northwest for the first time since its return to service.
The Big Boy will be on display in four cities:
- July 6, 2022: Sparks, Nevada
- July 8-9, 2022: Roseville, California
- July 15-16, 2022: Portland, Oregon
- July 21-22, 2022: Boise, Idaho
Display days include locomotive viewing, access to the “Experience the Union Pacific Rail Car,” a multi-media walk-through exhibition that provides a glimpse at the past while telling the story of modern-day railroading, and live Q&A with the Steam Crew.
Twenty-five Big Boy locomotives were built for Union Pacific to haul heavy freight during World War II and out of the eight still preserved, No. 4014 is the world’s only functioning Big Boy. Weighing in at 1.1 million pounds, this is the second tour since the locomotive was restored for 2019’s “Great Race” tours which celebrated the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad’s completion, following a retirement that spanned six decades.
