For a few moments Thursday, hundreds of people in La Grange caught a glimpse of history.
They gathered along freight train tracks on the east side of the village to see the famed Big Boy Number 4014 locomotive steaming through town.
Folks began gathering around 10 a.m. to catch a glimpse of the towering black engine that chugged through shortly after 11 a.m. on a perfect, sun-kissed spring morning.
Steam billowed from its smokestack as the loud horn sounded.
The Union Pacific’s Big Boy Number 4014 is the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. The locomotive is part of the 250th birthday celebration of America and is due in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July.
It’s been two years since the giant steam locomotive rumbled through the area, and train buffs were sure not to miss it on Thursday.
How big is it? Well, as Patrick King, 24, of La Grange said, Big Boy “lives up to its name.”
It is 132 feet long and weighs 1.2 million pounds.
American Locomotive Company built 25 of these between 1941 and 1944 to haul heavy freight over the steep grades of Wyoming’s Wasatch Mountains.
Only eight survive. And No. 4014 is the only one still running, restored by Union Pacific in 2019 after decades on static display.
Credit: Steve Metsch / Southwest Regional Publishing
King said he was happy to be working from home on Thursday.
“It’s a steam engine. That’s been my love since I was a little kid. Something as special as this. I’ve been lucky to see Big Boy a couple of times now. Last time was right here a couple years ago,” King said.
“It’s awesome,” he added. “And to have it come through my hometown.”
King said he was “jumping for joy” when Union Pacific announced the locomotive would be rolling again.
“To me, steam is the most beautiful, the most soulful machine that mankind has ever created,” King said.
About 10 feet away was Andy Kunz, 74, of La Grange, with his camera perched atop a tripod.
He started his career working for Pullman Standard in Hammond, where he designed freight cars and freight car components.
“I spent the first seven years of my career in the railroad biz. It kind of infects you,” said Kunz, who stood in a gravel parking lot just east of Elm and Bluff avenues.
“I marvel at the machine — well over one million pounds — and the fact that it went up and over the mountains, carrying all those loads. What those guys designed with the tools they had at the time amazes me. Not just trains, but anything else,” Kunz said.
Another La Grange resident, Jason Yorton, 51, was in the right place at the right time.
He was driving back from Midway Airport with his sister-in-law when they noticed a large number of people sitting at Sedgwick Park.
They were near the intersection of 47th Street and East Avenue, famed for its long delays caused by freight trains.
Unlike those, this was one delay nobody minded.
“I went up to a couple of people, asked what they were doing, and they said, ‘Big Boy’s coming.’ I had heard about it previously. I went home, looked at the tracker, got on my scooter and came over,” Yorton said.
As the train’s horn echoed in the background, he admitted Big Boy “was pretty massive.”
“I wasn’t expecting that. You see trains coming through all the time in this area. The size alone,” he said.
Yorton compared the experience to seeing a freight train in an old Western movie.
The father of four said it was unfortunate school is out for summer vacation.
“This could have been the kids’ Americana field trip,” he said. “My father back in New York would get a kick out of this. He loves the old West. He was stationed out there for the military.
“So, anything from the old West resonates with him — the old Westerns, the Clint Eastwood movies,” Yorton said.
His father, William, “will be stoked” when Yorton sends him the 25-second video he filmed Thursday, just as many in La Grange and other suburbs were stoked to see Big Boy No. 4014.
Big Boy was scheduled to stay overnight Thursday in South Holland before departing the Chicago area at 8 a.m. Friday.