In a Facebook live event in conjunction with the CBS affiliate in Cheyenne, UP steam manager Ed Dickens said the restored Big Boy as well as 4-8-4 No. 844 will travel to Ogden, Utah, for the celebration. He said the engines will re-enact the scene made famous by the two American-type locomotives, the Central Pacific Jupiter and UP 119 on May 10, 1869 at Promontory Summit. Ogden is the closest UP point to Promontory, where the railroad was abandoned during World War II.
He did not provide a schedule, but did say that the journey between the steam shop and Ogden would take several days in order to give the public plenty of opportunities to see the locomotive. Of the 25 Big Boy locomotives built in the 1940s, only eight survive, and none has run since 1959.
He also said that No. 4014 will be seen in other locations on the UP in 2019 – “virtually all over the system.”
Dickens spoke in front of a set of freshly machined drivers that had been repaired at Pennsylvania’s Strasburg Rail Road. The locomotive is still under restoration.
For an update about the Big Boy locomotive, see the June issue of Trains.
