In case you have been under a rock somewhere this Spring, we have a visitor from out west that came and ride some East Coast rails. The UP Big Boy 4014 is making a 250th Celebration run to be in Philadelphia for July 4, our nation’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

It has been in Steamtown for the last couple of weeks after running some wild excursions between Jim Thorpe and Scranton. I didn’t get the chance to see those excursions, they were well attended. I really didn’t want to be in that mass of humanity and craziness.

When UP 4014 first arrived in Steamtown, they parked the locomotive staggered from her sister unit UP 4012. I guess they want to have a view of both sides of the 4014. I didn’t like how they looked so I passed on going up to see it. This past weekend they moved the 4012 up to be side by side with her sister. That I wanted to see.

It turned out We had a doctor’s appointment this morning and I was able to head up to Steamtown afterwards. I couldn’t get there until late afternoon, but I knew the light would be good then since I had photographed the RDG FP7 and RDG T-1 in that location a couple of years earlier.

I am really amazed by the crowds that this locomotive has drawn. There are posts all over social media showing it passing through towns all across America and there are always large crowds out to see it pass through. People waiting hours, sometimes for a 30 second moment when it passes through their town.

Another reason I wanted to go to Steamtown was to get a chance to shoot the locomotives together with my other passion in life, my big cameras. In this case my K.B. Canham 4×10 and 5×7 cameras. Now I just have to process the film. I’ll share those images in a later post.