Chasing Union Pacific’s Big Boy Steam Locomotive

Chasing Union Pacific’s Big Boy Steam Locomotive

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November 13, 2019 – UP engineer Ed Dickens leans out the cab of Union Pacific 4014 Big Boy as it heads through the curve approaching Malvern, Arkansas, as it races north on the Little Rock Subdivision with it’s passenger train on UP’s Race Across the Southwest event.

Well, I struck out on my own on November 12, 2019 to chase the recently restored Union Pacific 4014 (Big Boy) steam locomotive between Hope and Little Rock Arkansas. It’s been running close to a year now and this is the closest it’s been to Madisonville, Ky so far and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to photograph the largest operating Steam Locomotive in the United States, if not the world! It was a great thrill to see and photograph this majestic locomotive and to feel it moving the ground as it breathed it’s fire and smoke along the way. To say it was a thrill is putting it mildly.

Events like this aren’t just for us old guys that love trains!! This is friend Doyle Massey and his kids at Prescott, AR! We’ve known each other for several years and almost always run into each other on these events!

I almost went to Chicago to photograph it earlier in the year, but I’m so glad I waited for it in November because the cold air made for a great show with all the steam from the hot exhaust of the locomotive as it made it’s way between Hope and Little Rock, Arkansas over two days! 

I met several railfans who are friends on Facebook with me and also made some new friends along the way and some I had already meet in past trips! The railfan community in many ways is like my military community in the fact that it’s a good, close knit group that have like interests!

Below is a video I shot of it departing Prescott, Arkansas! For full effects, turn up your sound! Below the video are some of my favorite pictures from the chase. Click on the thumbnails to view the full picture!

 

Chasing My Old Kentucky Dinner Train

Chasing My Old Kentucky Dinner Train

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Waiting on a train at the north wye, on the Buster Pike overpass, north of Danville, Ky on the NS CNO&TP First District, during a day of railfanning will fellow photographers, David Higdon Jr, Bryan Burton, Ryan Scott and a Facebookless, Bill Crecco! A great time by all and a great day of railfanning with friends!

I recently spent the day with four other railfans chasing the RJ Corman Lunch and Dinner train that runs out of Bardstown, Kentucky and also made our way over to Danville, Kentucky to catch a few trains on the Norfolk Southern line that runs through there and splits off to Louisville and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Usually when I go trackside to railfan it’s a solitary event, or at most one other person, but this trip was a bit different with the five of us. They included good friends and fellow railfan photographers, Ryan Scott from Indiana, Bryan Burton from Tennessee, David Higdon Jr. from Illinois and Bill Crecco, who we jokingly call “Facebookless Bill” because he doesn’t have a Facebook account, is also from Indiana.

I started my part of the trip at 4am in the morning where I drove to Henderson, Kentucky and met up with Ryan and Dave, so we could all carpool over to Bardstown together. As most who know me, that’s pretty early for me to be up these days, but it’s not bad as long is it’s only once in awhile! We arrived in Bardstown about 9am local time which gave us time to grab breakfast at Cracker Barrel and figure out or plan of attack for the two runs that day of the train. Bryan, from Tennessee had be up to Bardstown earlier in the month and had pretty much scoped out what he felt were the best spots and we all relied on his judgment, which didn’t disappoint as you can see from the pictures accompanying this post!

RJ Corman’s (RJC) My Old Kentucky Dinner Train with FP7A #1940 and 1941 pulls into Limestone Junction, Ky with a string of dining cars, on the RJC Bardstown Line. This is the turn around point for the train, where the engines run around their train before heading back to Bardstown.  According to the RJC Dinner Train brochure, Limestone Springs Junction is located at MP: 24 and is the final attraction along the route.  This old-English style depot is presently owned by the Jim Beam company, but in the past it reportedly housed numerous famous and wealthy passengers on the second floor of its overnight facilities.  The depot also served as a filming location for the 1981 movie “Stripes” featuring Bill Murray and John Candy.
RJ Corman’s (RJC) My Old Kentucky Dinner Train with FP7A # 1940 leading, 1941 trailing and a string of dining cars, passes the Samuels Bourbon Rickhouses, which are used to store barrels of bourbon, on the RJC Bardstown Line at Deatsville, Kentucky.  The Rickhouses store barrels of bourbon.

While we didn’t ride the lunch or dinner trains this trip, I had before when I worked for The Messenger Newspaper. Reporter Garth Gamblin and I did a series for many years called “Saturday Adventures” and the dinner train was one of the features we did for the Sunday Lifestyles page. The food and two hour trip were great back then and I’m sure nothing has changed since then.

It was a long day, but as you can see from the photographs above and the gallery below we all came away with great photographs and memories of a fun day trackside!

The Steam Chasers in Nashville, Tennessee

The Steam Chasers in Nashville, Tennessee

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I have a core group of about 4 railfan friends; Ryan, Dave, Bill and Bryan, that I hit the road with. This weekend was the first time since a steam train trip to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga back in 2017, that we all five have been on a trip together and we had a great time despite the overcast, dreary and raining weather. 

On Saturday March, 9th, 2019 the five of us made a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to see the movement of the NC&StL Steam locomotive at Union Station in downtown Nashville, Tennessee as part of it’s movement by  CSX Transportation with it’s renumbered CSXT 576 unit.

After several hours on display the locomotive was then towed on its own wheels to the restoration facility at the Tennessee Central Railway Museum, where it will undergo and estimated two years of restoration. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company operated in the southern United States in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. It began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville in December 11, 1845, built to 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee. By the turn of the twentieth century, the NC&StL grew into one of the most important railway systems in the southern United States.

The plan is to run 576 in excursion service out of Nashville once the repairs are complete. Below is a live video I did from Union Station.

Turn Around Trips/Rescheduling Shuttle Duties

Turn Around Trips/Rescheduling Shuttle Duties

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A few weeks ago Jim and I made a quick trip to Charlotte, NC to visit my daughter Jamie, to see her brand new house, and to meet my fifteenth great-grandchild, Sophia Madeline Stinson. This beautiful little girl was born on December 31st, just in time to be claimed on her parents 2018 income taxes. I wanted to go see her immediately, but Jim and I both were fighting an upper respiratory infection and didn’t want to endanger her with our hacking coughs which took several weeks to subside.

Although this used to be a trip we made several times a year, we hadn’t been to Charlotte for quite a while. These days, any out of town trip that can’t start after 5pm on Friday and end by a reasonable bedtime Saturday night requires a shuffling of schedules and duties. We are committed to providing shuttle service for five of our “littles” for school and afternoon activities during the week.

I take one or the other of the two youngest to preschool in the morning, Jim picks them up afterwards and takes them home. We alternate picking their older brother up from first grade at one school and two of their cousins from a different school. In addition, three of them have karate classes on Monday and Friday, two of them have ballet on Thursday, and the four oldest ones have choir practice at the church on Wednesdays.

On Sunday, we take six of them to church and also have responsibilities to fulfill there. We are both deacons and Jim is the videographer while I have other intermittent duties. Saturday is the only day we have free and, even then, we need to be home by 9pm or so because two of those littles usually spend the night to make Sunday mornings a little easier. This is our current retirement schedule and it limits our ability to travel most of the time.

The karate studio that the three oldest ones attend provides an afterschool program as well as martial arts training. They have a van that shuttles to most of the schools in the area and brings the afterschool kids to the dojo. We arranged for our three to ride the van to class on Friday and their parents to pick them up when they were finished so that we could get started in the morning. Tracy, the mother of our preschoolers, volunteered to take her daughter, Journey, to school so that we could leave earlier.

Due to a lack of advance preparation, we didn’t make our planned 8am deadline. We finally got on the road around 10am. Jim prefers to do all the driving so I spent the trip reading, dozing, and occasionally playing navigator. When I’ve made this drive alone in the past, I filled up before leaving town, stocked up on snacks and a cooler of drinks, then drove straight through to Knoxville. I stop there for gas and a meal from someone’s drive thru. Then go straight through to Charlotte. As long as traffic kept moving, my normal routine was to leave town around 8am and arrive in Charlotte by 6pm (5pm our time).

That’s not Jim’s way. He waited to get gas at a truck stop on the way to Nashville where gas is a few cents cheaper. Then, since we got a late start, we stopped to eat just on the other side of Nashville. Jim usually doesn’t care to eat while driving, so we went in at an iHop. Jim doesn’t usually carry a cooler, so we stopped every few hours for drinks and snacks. Since we were running so late, we stopped to eat again at a Cracker Barrel near Asheville around 6pm. We finally arrived at our destination around 9pm. We all have preferences for traveling. Sometimes, it’s about arriving as soon as possible. Other times it’s about the trip itself. Normally, when we travel together, it’s mostly about the trip.

We always have a destination and a schedule, but it’s usually more relaxed and allows for stops or side trips. When I travel alone, it’s mostly about the destination. At least, we made it into the Smokies before dark which is always my goal because I love the mountains. We always take I40 from Nashville to I 77 in Statesville, NC. I love the stretch of road between Knoxville and Asheville. it’s like the earth rises up to wrap its arms around you and welcome you home. If we had more time, we would have stopped along the way to take photos. I took my camera with that in mind but, since we were running late, it stayed in the bag.

I’ve done turn around trips before when my grandchildren were younger and I’d go pick them up to come home with me for summer vacations.  Drive for 8 hours, spend the night or may two, then drive home.  I’ve done it alone, and with others.  This was the first one in a long time.  It felt rushed and didn’t allow us to spend the time we’d have liked to with them.  I’d much rather have spent several days.  But my current “job”, while I love it, doesn’t have much room for extended vacations.