Pulling west out of Barstow's beautiful Harvey House passenger station to get in position for the long shove move to UP's Yermo Yard. Engineer: UP Steam Program Director Ed Dickens. Fireman known only as "Austin".
There is a backstory here: From the time I was 10 in 1971 until college swept me away in 1981, I was an active junior member of the So. Cal. Chapter of the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society (R&LHS) located at the LA County Fairgrounds in Pomona, CA. UP 4014 was the Chapter's prize possession, but her immensity was intimidating and nobody seemed overly interested in her care. So I and another a guy a bit older than me (he could drive) adopted the 4014 as our charge and with the Chapter's blessing took on the herculean task of her cosmetic maintenance the best we could. We were young, dumb, idealistic and enthusiastic - so armed with a complete lack of knowledge and little guidance from the Chapter's "old heads" we cleaned-out the cab, hauled away years of accumulated junk and trash, chased-down and re-installed missing gauges and other cab "jewelry", made labels for the myriad of valves and controls, scraped paint, sanded rust spots, sprayed primer over them, (she sat for a few years with what looked like Rustoleum Leporsy), steam-cleaned everything, chiseled coagulated grease, grime and gunk from her running gear and finally, with professional spay paint equipment and a huge compressor rented by the Chapter, gave her a new coat of black and silver paint. In the weeks prior to painting, we tediously traced and cut stencils of all her exterior lettering. The big air compressor gave me an idea and before long I had it connected to the locomotive's main reservoir. We nearly wet our pants to watch the air gauge in the cab register pressure. I can't tell you what happened when we actually charged the brake pipe. Later, using the Chapter's tiny utility compressor (which I'm sure we burned-out) we spent many weekends chasing down and fixing leaks. We kept the mechanical lubricators filled with waste oil and manually cranked them over whenever we were there, not really knowing where the oil was going. And in doing so, although hoping to prevent decay to her more sensitive innards, we dared not harbor so much as a passing whim about her actually running again. Somehow the Automatic Train Control (ATC Cab Signals) receiver on the engine escaped salvage by the UP when she was donated. So my buddy, quite the techno-geek of the era, built a 36v DC power supply and another device that simulated the in-rail analog radio signals of the ATC system and got the cab signals working as intended. I clearly recall the first time we powered-up the receiver, which was about the size of a modern dishwasher (built today it would probably be about the size of my cell phone) and, after wiggling a couple of loose vacuum tubes, it came to life - emitting a creepy hum, its tubes glowing for the first time in over two decades. Demonstrating the air brakes and cab signals was always a huge hit to the visiting public. Whooshing air and flashing colored lights put a modicum of life into the otherwise static exhibit. With the help of an electrician we wired her to "shore power" and got all of her exterior and interior lights working. Often we'd stay after dark just to marvel at her illuminated number boards: "X4014" and white classification lights. We'd sit in the cab just staring at the headlight glow splaying out ahead. Many fantasies played out in my young mind those nights of what it must have been like to run this incredible machine. I knew every inch of that locomotive and just about everything there was to know about her and her sisters. I even wrote my high-school AP English thesis on the storied UP 4000s (got an A). Somewhere along the way we painted her again.
But alas - a dragon lives forever, but not so little boys. My life marched on and 4014 and I drifted apart. I know others followed who made significant contributions to her upkeep and well-being, but would like to think that my efforts contributed somehow to her emergence as the Chosen One. And now I had to see "my" Big Boy again up-close and personal - sort of a "pinch-me" confirmation that she was really alive again and not an adolescent hallucination playing out in an old guy's mind. So at Barstow on the afternoon of Saturday, October 12, 2019, I managed to work my way through the throngs up to the fence separating us unwashed masses from the Queen. Over the course of my professional railroad career I became acquainted with UP Heritage Steam Program Director Ed Dickens on a few occasions, mostly related to his gracious assistance with the operation of Santa Fe 3751. Never in a million years would I have expected him to recognize me in the crowd at Barstow.
But he did.
No words can express my gratitude for his warm hospitality and for the incredible, and very emotional, reunion with "my" Big Boy.
OK'd a 1450, my initials: WMP