Historic steam engine passes through Iowa on Thursday

BELLE PLAINE — Hundreds of people from across Iowa and perhaps beyond gathered in the Benton County city of Belle Plaine on Thursday to see the world’s largest operating steam locomotive in action.

Big Boy No. 4014 is one of 25 large steam engines — weighing about 1.2 million pounds, measuring 132 feet long and boasting 7,000 horsepower — that the Union Pacific Railroad built during World War II.

The locomotive steamed into Belle Plaine as part of its “Heartland of America” tour through several Midwestern and Southern states.

Eight of the Big Boys are still around, but No. 4014 is the only one that is functional, after it was restored by the Union Pacific Railroad between 2013 and 2019. The others are on display in museums around the country.

“It’s a very proud job that we have, to be able to represent this beautiful corporation and all the proud work that they do every day,” said Ed Dickens, the train’s engineer and senior manager of the Union Pacific Heritage Operations “That’s what this locomotive does. It shares the proud accomplishments of the last 160 years of the Union Pacific Railroad.”

Dickens has taken the engine on several tours around the country since it went back into service in 2019. By the end of the current tour, the train will have about 21,000 miles on it in its second life, Dickens said.

“We’re a small crew, but we’re backed by thousands and thousands of Union Pacific colleagues, men and women of the Union Pacific that help us do this,” Dickens said. “It’s exciting that we get to be out in front and get to wave at people, but … there are so many people that make this locomotive go.”

Radio Iowa reported that entertainer Jay Leno, a well-known railroad buff, was aboard the locomotive when it stopped in Denison in western Iowa on Wednesday, but did not continue as the engine headed into Eastern Iowa.

‘We move freight’

The engine arrived in Belle Plaine shortly after 1 p.m., pulling empty passenger cars and stayed in the city of 2,300 about 15 minutes. Dickens said he tries to keep the stops short so that he doesn’t get in the way of the freight trains using the tracks.

“Railroads are just trickling along in the background of your life,” he said. “People don’t really remember how important the railroad is. Everything that comes into your life, every little thing in your life, comes in, in one form or another, by the railroad. And that’s what we do. We move freight.”

The locomotive presumably is spending Thursday night in Cedar Rapids, though access is closed. It’s scheduled to depart Cedar Rapids en route to Rochelle, Ill., at 9 a.m. Friday.

The engine last went through Eastern Iowa in July 2019 as part of the commemoration of the Transcontinental Railroad’s 150th anniversary.

Rail fans

Hundreds of people came out to see the Big Boy, including school groups and families. The area around the tracks started filling up with blankets and lawn chairs hours before the engine arrived.

Mary Hinkle, 75, of Tama, saw the locomotive with her son and husband on one of its previous tours through the country. Her son was working and couldn’t come to Belle Plaine, but he hoped to step away from his job and see the steam engine pass through Tama earlier Thursday, she said.

“We’ve always liked trains, so we wanted to see the big one,” Hinkle said. “We live in Tama, and we have trains going through Tama all the time.”

Beth Witter Mezera, 60, of McGregor, and her mother Joan Witter, 82, of Dysart, stood as close as they could to the tracks Thursday holding up a sign that read “Deanna Fan Club.”

Mezera is close friends with engineer Dickens’ sister, Deanna — who she worked with in Colorado several years ago — and she and her mother have greeted him in the past when he’s come through Iowa with the steam engine.

“Last time the train came through, I held a sign up that said Deanna on it, and he did not know I was going to be here. So, I came up and we connected,” Witter said. “Last time, we followed the train all the way to Marshalltown, when it was going the other way.”

People watch at Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014, the largest operating steam locomotive in the world, enters Belle Plaine on Thursday afternoon. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)

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Workers grease the wheels of Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 during its Thursday stop in Belle Plaine, west of Cedar Rapids. (Nick Rohlman/The Gazette)

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