SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) — Big Boy 4014 arrives in NEPA on June 13. Each day until then, we’re sharing a fascinating fact about the world’s largest operating steam locomotive.
Before retirement, Big Boy 4014 logged 1,031,205 miles in active service.
That’s equivalent to circling the Earth more than 41 times, traveling from Scranton to Los Angeles more than 400 times, or making a round trip to the moon and back twice.
What makes that number even more impressive is where those miles were accumulated. Big Boys weren’t assigned to easy routes across flat terrain. They spent their careers battling some of the most demanding railroad territory in North America, hauling heavy freight trains across the Wasatch Mountains of Utah and the high plains of Wyoming.
Every mile placed tremendous stress on the locomotive. The giant machine weighed more than a million pounds, routinely hauled thousands of tons of freight, and operated through snowstorms, desert heat, high winds and mountain grades.
By the time 4014 was retired in December 1961, it had spent nearly two decades helping move the freight that powered the post-war American economy. The locomotive hauled everything from wartime supplies and military equipment to agricultural products, manufactured goods and raw materials.
Perhaps most remarkable is that those one million miles were accumulated without the benefit of modern computerized diagnostics or electronic controls. The locomotive’s performance depended on the skill of engineers, firemen, mechanics and shop crews who maintained it throughout its career.
Today, many locomotives from that era survive only as static displays. Big Boy 4014 not only survived its million-mile career, but was restored to operation and continues adding miles to its odometer more than 80 years after it was built.
Every mile on Big Boy’s odometer tells a story. More than a million of them already have.