Ed Dickens waved to the cheering sea of humanity outside his window.
As Dickens and his crew gently eased the massive machine to a stop, the crowd of thousands cheered louder. A wave of applause tore through the air.
Union Pacific's Big Boy locomotive 4014 had arrived in Owego, N.Y., with a greeting fit for a president or a king.
Or a rockstar.
"The locomotive is the rockstar," Dickens said, playing down suggestions that he had acquired celebrity status on social media as pictures of him at work have taken on a life of their own.
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Dickens, senior manager of heritage operations for Union Pacific, has been at the throttle as Big Boy makes its way east on a cross-country America 250 tour that will bring the locomotive to Northeast Pennsylvania starting on Saturday.
Tall and serious with bright blue eyes and silver hair, Dickens, in his neat pinstriped shirt and overalls, looks every bit the quintessential railroad engineer.
But he's quick to credit the entire team that keeps the historic 1.2-million-pound locomotive working safely to the delight of thousands.
"Those that make it run, and those that work behind the scenes really are ... the rockstars that make all this work," said Dickens, after he paused to scoop chunks of ice from a cooler and funnel them down the back and front of his shirt.
The temperature outside was in the 80s, but the mercury inside Big Boy's cab easily topped three digits as heat from the boiler and thick blasts of steam turned the space into a sauna.
Into that sauna on Friday morning climbed members of WVIA News, as Union Pacific granted rare access to the cab while Big Boy's Semiquincentennial journey took the train from Sayre, Pa., to Owego, N.Y.
With another reporter following by car, the hot June morning gave a glimpse of what Northeast Pennsylvania can expect when 4014 chugs south from Binghamton, N.Y. on Saturday — large crowds gathered along the tracks and on overpasses.
But it also offered a rare look at something most of the legions of fans who turn out to watch Big Boy pass will never see: Life behind the engine's hissing controls as America passes by outside the cab.
'It’s just so impressive'
Big Boy spent Thursday night outside the former Lehigh Valley Railroad Passenger Station in Sayre.
The borough in Bradford County once played an important role in the railroad industry. Lehigh Valley Railroad's "Big Shops,” the second largest automotive building in the world when it opened in 1904, produced 277 locomotives along with freight cars and cabooses, according to the Sayre Historical Society. The industry defined the region’s economy in the early 1900s.
History idled on the tracks Friday morning. By 7:30 a.m., a large crowd gathered at the old station, now a museum. A railroad worker cleaned the engine’s headlight. Drones flew overhead.
The Sherrard family of Monroe, Bradford County, wore matching American flag shirts as they waited for Big Boy’s departure. They watched the engine arrive Thursday night, waiting three hours in a prime spot.
“We were just hanging out on the hill when we heard a massive train whistle,” said Orion Sherrard, 9. “(If) that thing got in a tug of war with a group of 50 elephants, it would probably win.”
Dave Carl of Mountain Top, Luzerne County, waited in Sayre. He first saw the locomotive in Chemung, and then in Waverly, N.Y., on Thursday. He plans to see it near his home on Saturday, and then ride a Reading & Northern Railroad steam excursion in front of the Big Boy on Sunday.
“Just the mechanical ability and the fact that it's been restored… it's just an amazing piece of machinery,” he said. “It’s just so impressive.”
Getting ready to roll
The morning crowd at Sayre was considerably smaller than the gathering at Owego later Friday morning.
Families and rail photographers casually strolled outside the station in Sayre — and as close to the tracks as yellow caution tape would allow — chatting and snapping photos ahead of Big Boy's 9 a.m. departure time.
Railroad staffers in their high-visibility vests went through safety checks and tests.
Among them was Austin Barker, Union Pacific's "manager two" for Big Boy, waving hand signals down the tracks.
"We're about to get this locomotive ready. We're going to shove out," he said.
Like other members of the crew, Barker is a long way from home — he works out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, Big Boy's home base.
"It's a pretty cool thing that we're doing for America's 250th," he said of the tour.
Steam puffed from the engine’s side as it moved in reverse, back to the mainline to head on to Owego. The crowd waved goodbye. As America’s 250th birthday nears, the train had more stops to make.
Union Pacific spokesperson Robynn Tysver, along with Dickens, guided reporters as they climbed the train's narrow ladder up to the cab.
While interviews were not permitted while the train was in motion, Tysver offered some insights before boarding and during quiet moments.
Tysver said she has been on the train for at least three weeks for the tour. As the morning sun burned off the mist from Thursday night's downpour, she and another member of the crew remarked on how Eastern humidity compared with the dry Western warmth they were used to.
Life inside the cab
Regardless of how much moisture was in the air, Tysver stressed the importance of drinking plenty of fluids while standing in the sweltering cab, offering bottled water from an ice-packed cooler.
Failure to stay hydrated is a serious concern, Dickens and Tysver said.
She and Dickens gave further safety instructions: Where and how to stand, how to hang on, and the importance of wearing the foam earplugs provided by the railroad.
Every hiss and growl of the machinery, every reverberating blast of the horn reinforced that message. And yet the occasional quiet conversation was still possible.
Families, train enthusiasts and curious onlookers lined the route through the Southern Tier of New York. They waved American flags and waited for the perfect photo opportunity. They pulled off of highways, ran across fields or climbed ladders to get better views. They could hear the train before they could see it.
The 20-mile trip took more than 90 minutes, as thousands waited in Owego to see Big Boy arrive.
The train reached about 35 mph maximum, — which felt and sounded much faster as the cab gently rocked and rolled.
Built in 1941 as a coal-fired engine, Big Boy was converted to burn fuel oil as part of the restoration that returned it to operating condition in 2019.
Unlike steam locomotives, the cab is free of smoke and coal dust — there's no shovelling black rocks into the firebox, whose orange flames are only occasionally visible through a tiny hole.
'How beautiful this country is'
As Big Boy led a train of cars and diesel support locomotives toward Owego, Tysver occasionally asked about the landscape around her — What's Sayre's history? What river is that? And as the tracks straddled the meandering state line, are we in New York or Pennsylvania?
But there was one statement she quietly made several times.
"I can't get over how beautiful this country is," Tysver said.
