Nostalgia & History > a Big Boy in the lime light

In March of 1979 I was up chasing around in the Omaha ~ Council Bluffs area and got a little bit brave in shooting UP’s Big Boy #4023 sitting on display. I don’t remember if I took this shot from public access or an employee parking area, or what. I do remember being a little leery of getting too close to that beautiful hunk of RR history. In hindsight [of course] I would have gotten a lot closer. As it is I should have raised my camera a bit and not cut the top of the flagpole off. Live and learn, they say…

Any given railfan photographer will have a rather long list of “do-over” shots in the ol’ collection, with some variation of this attached emotion: “Golly gee! I’d sure like to take that shot again, only THIS TIME I would [………………fill in blank……………….]! I’d love to reach back 36 years and get that do-over, but since I cannot I’ll just have to treasure this photo with a slightly wistful railfan sighhhhhh…

1. UP Big Boy 4-8-8-4 4023 sits in spotlight glory in Omaha, NE on March 2, 1979.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/22 20:53 by santafe199.

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Lance,
    You got a good shot even if you cut off the flags. I believe that was the employees parking lot but remember that back then it wasn't a crime to stop and take photos on the property. If confronted, you would say you are a railfan photographer and you would have gotten the standard reply, "Well just be careful." At that time the shop had steam piped out to the smokebox on the 4023 and on the colder days you would see the steam rise out of the stack. They had blocked off the tube sheet so it didn't harm the boiler.
   I know of no living rail photographer that hasn't at one time in their life said, "I wish I could shoot that one again". Heck I wish I could be beamed back into the days of steam so I could see first hand how the engineer's and firemen operated. I only have the answers to questions that I asked of the ones I worked with who had the seniority to have worked on them. Remember on UP they did run steam until 1959 when it was finally ended. And Cheyenne was one of the last bastions of steam except for some branches in Nebraska.
  I guess, since in my career I got to work around and run everything from GP-7's and AB-6's to the SD70's and Dash 9 GE's, I guess I am of the history and nostalgia crowd. Fortunately, in my last years with UP, I got to fulfill a boys dream with my Lionel set of running a steam locomotive as well. A month or so ago I told the guys who will chair the UPHS Denver convention in 2017 that I would be glad to put a program together for them so I better get started on finding the photos to build my talk about. I will look for the photos with the flags in them. LOL.
Happy Railfanning,

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

 That is a very surreal photo. Love it!

You did good Lance.