'Big Boy' passes through area

COLBY — In a farmer's freshly cut-and-baled alfalfa field Saturday afternoon, a small crowd of about two dozen adults and children oohed and cheered as Union Pacific Big Boy 4014, the world's largest locomotive steam engine, chugged by on the Norfolk Southern rail line. The small contingent of happy onlookers at the unincorporated settlement in Sandusky County's York Township were among thousands who turned out to see Big Boy from its Ohio entrance in Paulding County en route to Bellevue. The articulated engine, 133 feet long, spent Saturday evening to Monday morning at Norfolk Southern's Moorman Yard in Sandusky County. Heading east with stops at Lorain and Euclid, Big Boy is making its way to Philadelphia for the July 4th celebration of the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence. The engine, built in Schenectady, New York, in 1941, hasn't been farther east than Chicago since it joined Union Pacific's stable of locomotives working routes over the Rocky Mountains in the early 1940s. American Locomotive Company manufactured 25 of the massive engines, beginning with No. 4000, specifically designed to haul loads over the steep grades of the Wasatch Range. The number of spectators in the fields on either side of Township Road 266 — unpaved and with no grade crossing — couldn't compare with the thousands who saw Big Boy at its whistle stop in Fostoria's Iron Triangle just 26 miles west, but enthusiasm was equally high. "This is just amazing and I'm so glad we came here," said Becky Knieriemen of Clyde, who watched Big Boy pass by with her parents, husband Mike and daughter, Evelyn, 4. "She's just crazy about trains and planes, and we just wanted a place to see Big Boy without a big crowd," Mike Knieriemen said. The trio wore matching "Big Boy 'King of the Rails'" t-shirts for the pass-by. News reports and social-media posts from Saturday estimated a crowd of 7,000 showed up in Continental, a Putnam County village with 1,100 residents, for Big Boy's first Ohio stop on Saturday. Toledo TV station WTOL-11 reported that well more than 10,000 turned out in Fostoria, a city of 13,000 in Seneca County. Big Boy is traveling east from its permanent home at the Union Pacific Steam Shop in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on the railroad's "America 250" tour celebrating the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence. The locomotive will head west through Ohio on the same route in mid-July, with stops in Struthers on July 12, Rocky River on July 13, and Fostoria, July 14. The Fostoria stop will be Big Boy's longest in Ohio, with free public access from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Iron Triangle Railpark. On July 15, the engine will stop again in Continental for a half-hour starting at 11:30 a.m. before heading to Fort Wayne. 'Big Boy' Stats:• Weight — 1.2 million pounds• Length — 133 feet• Height — 16 feet• Wheels — 4-8-8-4 (sets)• Drive wheels diameter — 5 feet, 8 inches• Configuration — articulated (hinged)• Total miles at retirement — 1.03 million, 1961• Cars for "America 250" trip — 2 tenders, 16 passenger cars