a script that will feature the engine when its restoration is finished. His company, History In Motion, will make the film about a magnate’s challenge to run the old locomotive from Texas to Canada.
During a little ceremony before the locomotive rolled, Mr. Bishop, dressed like his crew in overalls, choked up a little on a speech in which he talked about Big Boy as though it were his brother.
"They expected him to travel up the Rockies at 40 miles per hour. He traveled up the Rockies at 80 miles per hour. When the war came, he took soldiers. In peacetime, he took oranges for Christmas. Prom dresses."
Its wheels are taller than most people, and it dwarfs its neighboring exhibits, but there’s a nostalgic familiarity about the Big Boy. Its shape, if not its size, is instantly recognizable to any child who ever owned a Little Golden Book copy of The Little Engine That Could.
And it was poetry in motion to the train-crazed onlookers in an audience that was almost exclusively male and included a noticeably large number of engineers, draftsmen and others of technological bent. They crowded along a fence enclosing the litte rail yard, fingers hooked through the chain links like kids at a ballpark.
"Incredible," murmured one 50-something man in Cole Haan shoes and Polo shirt, expertly focusing a Nikon.
"It’s tremendous just to see all those parts working together," rhapsodized the scientifically named Newton Beam, a retired mechanical engineer. "This doesn’t happen every day."
Many in the crowd happily paid an enterprising huckster $3 for plastic buttons that crowed "I saw Big Boy Move!" - souveniers to inspire envy in anyone who recognizes the reference. One man hoisted his camcorder over his head to avoid fence links in his video; Roger Meier, an electrical engineer and not the Cadillac man, brought a stepladder from home to shoot unobstructed photos.
Software analyst Noel Presley ( "Like Elvis," he patiently confirmed), suggested that steam locomotives have organic qualities that humans would do well to emulate.
"They have a very open personality," he said. "Everything that makes it work, you can watch happen. This is beauty."
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| In early April of this year, Gary Bensman, of Diversified Rail Service, spent several days evaluating 4-8-8-4 Big Boy 4018 which is being preserved at the Age of Steam Museum in Dallas. Gary has stated, that 4018 is in excellent mechanical condition. According to the original service records, the locomotive underwent a complete overhaul by the shops in Cheyenne in May, 1957. Afterwards, it was soon retired in October, 1957 with only minimal mileage since its last overhaul. The hot, dry Texas air along with the orginal care the shop forces gave number 4018 have made the giant locomotive an excellent candidate for refurbishment. In fact, Gary said, when he examined the fire box, the ashes from the 1957 fire that was allowed to burn itself out, was still on the grates. Film producers for the project decided that restoring Big Boy benefits not only the aesthetics of the film but the valuable American history that surrounds the engine. |
