On Tuesday, as part of its tour of the eastern United States, Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 was on display in Fostoria, OH. I drove up to see it, but the picture at right is as close as I got. The entrance to the train yard where the locomotive was parked is about 2.5 miles farther on. Note that cars are converging onto the road I’d just left from both the left and the right. As might be expected, other roads leading to the yard from other directions were just as packed.
The announced opening time had been 9:00, and it was now about 9:45. Even though I knew better, I told myself that maybe this was just the buildup of people who had been waiting there since well before 9:00, and that it might thin out later. I turned back into town and treated myself to a $6.99 breakfast special at The American Table. After a leisurely meal, I tried again. This time, I followed a route through downtown, and although I got no closer to Big Boy than I had earlier, I did get the day’s only glimpse of a train. When I turned around this time, I spoke with a policeman directing traffic, who gave me directions to bypass most of the Fostoria traffic and reach Findlay. I asked if he thought things would settle down before day’s end. “Oh, hell no,” was his answer.
Findlay was my destination because that’s where I had reserved a motel room. I was way too early to check in, but finally had some luck and found the Findlay Brewing Company open. I claimed a bar stool and very slowly nursed a nice Irish Red Ale. After checking in and spending a little time at the motel, I returned to the brewery for a salad and a stout.
I had booked the room partly to postpone the nearly three-hour drive home, but also because I hoped to catch the train in motion. Seeing it head west on Wednesday would have been a goal even if I had been successful on Tuesday, but now it was even more important. Honey Joe’s Cafe in Arcadia looked like a good place to start the day. It was, and I had another fine breakfast.
There was a crossing just east of town that I thought might be a good viewing spot, and the fact that several cars were already there when I arrived reinforced that idea. The picture shows just a fraction of the cars that were there when the train came through. We had a couple of hours to wait, but things moved rather quickly after the online tracker indicated that it had left Fostoria. The first local indication that it was near was the passing of several small planes that seemed to be tracking the train and probably filming it. Then smoke from the locomotive could be seen approaching from beyond the trees.
I really don’t know what its speed was, but Big Boy moved to and through the crossing at a pretty good clip.
More than twenty cars made up the train, which meant that the locomotive was well beyond the crossing when the last car rolled out from behind the trees. I was happy to get a look at the Pullman bringing up the rear. Built in 1927, it served Franklin Roosevelt as Governor of New York and then as the President.
Most of the crowd was gone rather quickly. I know that some of those leading the exodus were off to catch the train again at one or more crossings farther west. I waited until all that scrambling was over, then drove into Findlay to take a look at Iron Triangle Park. The park was essentially unreachable yesterday, and my guess is that was probably true for this morning when Big Boy passed through. As I looked around, I heard someone announce that a train was coming, and I spotted its headlight through the group clustered at the fence. Three active rail lines border the park. I’ve read one report claiming that at least 60 trains pass this park every day, and another that claims an average of 100. I know of two that did it on Wednesday.
When I told a friend of my failure to see the parked Big Boy, I noted that the town of Struthers, OH, had around 20,000 people show up to see Big Boy on Sunday when they had expected 5,000. I’d seen a projection of 20,000 at Fostoria, and offered that maybe 100,000 had actually appeared. Turns out that wasn’t far off. It has been reported that 46,000 made their way into the rail yard, and an estimated 46,000 were turned away. Lots of people were disappointed, and I really sympathize with families who drove for hours then waited in line for several more without seeing what they came for. There has been some finger-pointing and attempts to place blame, and I do not doubt that there were things that could have been done better and instances where people could have behaved better. But the majority of what I’ve read indicates that most of the people involved were really doing the best they could. No one should be surprised that dealing with 90,000 people in 90-degree temperatures in a city with a population under 13,000 had a few bumps.
ADDENDUM 19-Jul-2026: Although I didn’t get to see Big Boy 4014 up close while it was on display in Fostoria, I have seen a sibling, Big Boy 4004, on permanent display in Cheyenne, WY.