Railway History

No locomotive captures the imagination quite like Union Pacific’s Big Boy. These 4-8-8-4 articulated giants—weighing 1.2 million pounds and stretching 132 feet with tender—remain the largest successful steam locomotives ever built. Their story spans the final peak of steam power, decades of preservation, and a remarkable 21st-century resurrection that lets modern audiences experience what railfans…

Between the driving of the Golden Spike in 1869 and the rise of interstate highways in the 1950s, American railroads ruled transportation. They moved millions of passengers, knit together a continent, built cities from nothing, and generated fortunes that shaped American capitalism. This was the Golden Age of American Railroads—a period when trains weren’t just…