That’s A Big Boy
“Hmm, I think I remember an old, steam engine, coming through Chicago a few years ago. I wonder if this is the same one?” Ben thought.
Ben’s searching didn’t take long to find that the train coming through his town was called Big Boy No. 4014. Some quick links showed Ben that the train had come through five years earlier.
“I knew it! I knew I remembered something about a train coming through. I wonder why I didn’t see it back then?” he pondered.
As he kept looking for links, he found that Big Boy No. 4014 was operated by Union Pacific Railroad.
Ben mumbled under his breath, “Hmm, that makes sense knowing the rail line it’s coming down. Hmm, looks like they do these train tours a lot, like they go all over the country.”
Speaking up, Ben mentioned to Amy, “Honey, did you know that the train is called Big Boy No. 4014, and it came through five years ago? They restored it when they were celebrating the transcontinental railroad.”
“No, I didn’t,” gently said Amy, resigning to the fact that the rest of the evening was going to be filled with a lot of facts about trains that didn’t really interest her.
Ben filled the evening with bits of commentary as he kept getting pulled deeper and deeper into the history of the Big Boy.
“Gosh, I thought it would be older than that,” he whispered under his breath as he discovered the train was built in 1941. After he found a picture of the train, he rambled, “Oh, I thought it was going to look like one of those trains from the westerns, with the big smokestack. That’s kind of a bummer.”
“Wow, that thing can go eighty miles an hour if it wanted to. Hmm? Says it normally runs around thirty-five miles per hour, though. I should try to remember that,” Ben mentioned to himself. Then he directed his commentary back to Amy, “Honey, can you try to remember that the train usually runs around thirty-five to fifty miles per hour?”
“Yea, sure,” said Amy, with a slight shaking of her head, wondering when Ben’s train research would end.
Ben clicked on another link.
“Wow, they completely took it apart when they were fixing it. Ahh, it says they changed it from running on coal to fuel oil,” said Ben with a slight sound of disappointment. “I guess they don’t need to have someone shoveling coal any more,” as he thought back to the westerns he remembered seeing as a kid.
“Hmm, there are only eight of these left, Honey. This is the only one they have still running. They even had to make new parts for it.”
“Anything else,” replied Amy, in an uninterested voice that Ben didn’t hear.
“Yeah, that thing is huge!” Ben exclaimed. “From the front of the engine to the back of the tender, that’s where they keep the coal, only this one doesn’t have coal, they changed so it could use oil, I don’t know why, it seems it would be much cooler if it used coal, oh yeah, I told you that, but anyway, it’s like half the length of a 747 airplane.”
Ben turned his laptop so Amy could see a picture.
“See, look how big that is,” Ben exclaimed.
Amy leaned over politely to look at the picture, “Hmm, that is pretty big.”
“That’s going to be so cool coming through town. I wonder where I should try to take a picture from?” questioned Ben to Amy, who was still doing her best to not pay attention.
“Wow, those wheels are over five feet tall,” commented Ben, as he pulled his laptop back, not noticing that Amy barely looked at the picture.
Nearly an hour had gone by with Ben spouting various other facts about the train, from dimensions, to other train tours it had traveled, and letting Amy know, “They have another train, the 844, that they drive around, too. Hmm, that’s kind of weird looking. Look, the front is kind of boxy,” said Ben, as he turned his laptop back to Amy so she could see the picture.
“That is kind of boxy,” replied Amy.
Ben turned his laptop back so he could keep finding out more information about Big Boy No. 4014.
“It’s starting to get late,” Amy mentioned.
She then went on, “I’m going to start getting ready for bed. So when is the train coming through?” knowing that Ben became completely diverted from finding out when the train was scheduled to come through town.
“Um, oh yeah, I’m still trying to find that out,” Ben replied, realizing he forgot the main reason he started looking for the information in the first place.
He went back to the first link that had the map and schedule of the excursion the train was going to take.
“It looks like September 9th”, Ben replied.
Ben opened his calendar on his laptop.
“Crap, oh yeah, that’s a Monday,” Ben sighed, with a sense that his hopes of being able to see the train had sped by as quickly as the train would go through town.
“I still think you should take a half-day,” Amy said, warmly, trying to lift Ben’s spirits.
“Yeah, I’ll figure it out,” Ben replied, still sounding slightly dejected as he closed the lid on his laptop.
“Let’s go to bed,” Ben commented.
“Yeah, let’s. Don’t worry, you’ll figure out a way to see it. You always do,” said Amy with a reassuring tone in her voice.