TOPEKA — The train named Big Boy was late. The anticipation and impatience built as the 30 minutes passed.
Some stood for hours at the edge of the tracks at North Topeka’s Great Overland Station, waiting for a piece of American history to pass through town.
Just before 1 p.m., Big Boy No. 4014’s teeth-chattering whistle announced his arrival.
The 83-year-old steam locomotive stopped briefly Thursday afternoon, dumping steam in Topeka on its way from Kansas City, Missouri, to Salina on the final stretch of its route. A trip to America’s Heartland. There were at least 1,000 people from all over Kansas who wanted to catch a glimpse of the living legend.
The world’s largest steam locomotive, Big Boy No. 4014, enters Topeka on October 17, 2024. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)
Crowds ranging from hundreds to thousands gathered at nearly every stop on the eight-week, nine-state tour to see the locomotive weighing more than 1.2 million pounds, said Mike Jaixen, a spokesman for Union Pacific Railroad.
“There is a legend about the Big Boy,” he said.
Jaixen’s way of explaining the fate of the Big Boy begins in 1941, when the first Big Boy left the factory in Schenectady, New York. His name wasn’t Big Boy back then. He was to be named after the Wasatch Mountains, through which he would travel for 20 years and over 1 million miles between Utah and Wyoming, carrying goods, before retiring in 1961.
But one crew member, who was amazed by the sheer size of the locomotive, took a piece of chalk and scribbled the name “Big Boy” on the locomotive, Jaixen said. Crew members still draw the name in chalk on the front of the locomotive.
Big Boy No. 4014 was one of 25 produced exclusively for Union Pacific and is currently the only one in operation after being retired and restored from 2013 to 2019, allowing it to regain its title as the largest steam locomotive in the world. It is almost as long as two typical diesel locomotives and produces over 6,000 horsepower.
Jeff and Lena Appenfeller of Topeka react as they see the world’s largest steam locomotive, Big Boy No. 4014, enter the city on October 17, 2024. (Anna Kaminski/Kansas Reflector)
Jeff and Lena Appenfeller of Topeka waited behind a fence on the northeast side of the tracks. Others sat on the hoods and in the trunks of cars or in the crowds near the station. Lena Appenfeller, 7, had the day off from school, and Jeff Appenfeller saw Big Boy No. 4014 in Topeka for the second time. The locomotive whistle “grinds your teeth,” he said.
As Big Boy rounded the bend and slowly entered the station, railway police and crew tried to keep excited spectators from remaining on the tracks. It stopped for about 40 minutes, with people crowding the front of the train to take photos or get a closer look while crews performed minor maintenance.
One couple had traveled to observe from El Dorado, more than 100 miles away, and planned to catch a train to Wamego to witness the event among sparsely populated fields, they said.
Doug Edwards drove 30 miles from Holton to see Big Boy.
Trains were an important part of his life when he was a child. Now a retired electronics businessman, they remind him of the farm in northeast Kansas where he grew up, and recalling those memories moved him as he looked at the tracks.
“It’s a childhood thing,” he said.
The Big Boy is almost twice as long as a typical diesel locomotive and produces over 6,000 horsepower. (Anna Kamiński/Reflektor Kansas)