CLAREMORE, Okla. – On any other day, it would be strange to see people lining a quarter-mile of railroad track in the early afternoon.
But Monday, Oct. 14, was Train Day in Claremore, and thousands flocked downtown to watch the world’s biggest steam locomotive stop at the Florence Avenue railroad crossing.
Big Boy No. 4014 last came to Claremore in November 2019. Twenty-five Big Boy locomotives were built in 1941 to pull heavy freight for the war effort; No. 4014 is the only one operational.
No. 4014 set out from Cheyenne, Wyoming, in late August for the 2024 Heartland of America Tour. It left McAlester Monday morning and stopped in Muskogee around 11 a.m.
Crowds gathered along the tracks from Florence Avenue up to Muskogee Avenue and watched as two diesel-electric trains – just like the ones that cut through Claremore every day – shuttled down the tracks.
Around 1:40 p.m., distant puffs of smoke from the south rose above the trees, heralding Big Boy’s arrival. As it approached, people clambered to place coins on the tracks.
Ron Bruni used tape to fasten his coins onto the track, and for 10 minutes or so, his roll of tape made the rounds among the crowd. Bruni said he hoped the tape would keep the coins on the track so he could find them after Big Boy passed.
Bruni said he’d seen Big Boy come through in 2019, right in the same spot.
“It’s nostalgic,” Bruni said. “I mean, it’s a piece of history.”
Bruni came with his mother, Maxine Layton, who said she’s lived in Claremore almost 90 years. She said it was neat to see the locomotive, as well as all the people who had come from far away to see it.
“When I was a kid, these trains were just normal,” Layton said. “I mean, that’s all we saw. Even when I was a kid, we put pennies on the track.”
The locomotive stopped on the tracks for about half an hour as crew members climbed out to perform maintenance. People who had been standing farther up the tracks headed south to see it up close.
Lorre West and her daughter, Emily Troyer, checked out the engine as it stopped on the tracks. West said she was in awe as she looked at it, and she was pleasantly surprised when a stranger offered to take a photo of her and her daughter in front of the locomotive.
“It’s amazing how massive it is,” West said. “You know, you can see pictures, but when you are right in front of it, it’s massive.”
Big Boy No. 4014 weighs about 1.2 million pounds and stands about 16-1/2 feet tall.
Troyer said she had work off Monday, and her mother told her that morning to come see Big Boy with her. West said her daughter thought they’d be the only ones there to see it.
“Oh, [it was] cooler than I thought it would be,” Troyer said. “I kind of feel like I’m witnessing some history right now.”
Tricia Marlow called herself a train enthusiast; she came to see Big Boy dressed in conductor’s overalls with a red bandana around her neck from when she’d taken the Durango & Silverton round-trip train ride in Colorado.
Marlow had never seen Big Boy before, and as No. 4014 rolled north out of Claremore toward Coffeyville, Kansas, she said she wanted to hop on it.
She said she enjoyed seeing so many people gather to experience the same thing together.
“It’s a wonderful representation of when people come together, positive things can come about,” Marlow said. “That’s what we need right now in our land and in our country and in our state and in our nation: We need people coming together, having a good time, celebrating positive things.”