Some things you just have to see in person to believe. Union Pacific's Big Boy No. 4014 is one of them.
If you're not a train person — I wasn't, particularly, until I stood next to one — here's the short version. The Big Boys are the largest steam locomotives ever built: twenty-five of them rolled out of the American Locomotive Company in the early 1940s to drag freight over the mountains out west. Most were scrapped decades ago. 4014 was pulled from a museum, rebuilt by Union Pacific, and brought back to life in 2019 — and now it tours the country under its own steam, all 1.2 million pounds of it. When we heard it was coming through Hornell, that was an easy yes.
The whole town turned out
And then some. The crowd stretched as far as you could see — families, old-timers, kids up on shoulders, the Steuben County sheriff keeping an easy eye on it all. You don't get a turnout like this for just anything.
And the Big Boy wasn't even alone. There was a whole lineup of flag-draped engines, both numbered 1776 — one in Union Pacific yellow, one in Norfolk Southern's "America 250" colors. Pretty fitting, with the country's 250th birthday this year.
Standing next to a giant
Pictures genuinely don't do it justice. You can know the numbers and still not be ready for it when it's right there in front of you. You feel the heat coming off it. You catch that smell of oil and hot steam. And when it moves, you don't just hear it — you feel it in your chest.
They built these machines to move mountains of freight over the Continental Divide. Eighty years later, one still stops a whole town in its tracks.
Here she is rolling into town — watch (and turn the sound up):
Why Hornell, of all places
Here's something a lot of folks don't realize about our corner of New York: Hornell is a railroad town, right down to its bones. For generations it was a major division point on the old Erie Railroad, with big shops running day and night and whole families who lived and breathed the rails. So there's something fitting about the biggest steam engine ever made rolling back through a town that gave so much of itself to the railroad.
We made a day of it: the Erie Depot Museum
We didn't just catch the train and leave — we stopped in at the Hornell Erie Depot Museum, tucked into the old Erie Railroad depot on Loder Street. It's packed with hundreds of artifacts and the stories of the people who built this place one shift at a time. If you've got even a passing interest in how this town came to be, it's worth the stop.
The thing that got me most: Hornell still has a working turntable — one of only a handful left running anywhere in the country — over at the Alstom plant, where they still build trains today. The same town that spun locomotives around a century ago is turning out modern transit cars right now. The rails never really left.
The part that stuck with me
What got me wasn't just the size. It was the people. The ones who built these machines by hand. The crew that spent years bringing 4014 back from something everyone had written off. The grandparents in the crowd, pointing and telling the little ones what it was like.
We talk a lot around here about moving mountains — chipping away at debt, building something for our family one day at a time. Standing next to a machine literally built to do that, in a town that still knows what hard work on the rails looks like, hit a little different.
If you ever get the chance
Go. Bring the family, get there early, and just take a minute with it. Some things are worth driving out for, and this was one of them.
And when it was time, the whole town watched the giant roll back out:
More adventures, thrift finds, and stories from the climb are on the way — and if you want to support the journey, you can always shop our finds. 🏔️🚂