Thursday the 4th was quite the fantastic day. Got to cross a bucket list item off and couldn’t be more excited about it. Been watching union Pacific railroad’s social media the last couple weeks as they’ve been sharing videos of their 4-8-8-4 big boy locomotive a ton, locomotive #4014. I absolutely LOVE trains. Been fascinated with them since I was a kid. They announced 4014 would be doing a short west coast tour with all kinds of stops for the public to see it in person. Thought “man I’ve always wanted to see one in operation!” My bro in law’s grandpa ran the railway museum down at the LA county fairgrounds in Pomona for a number of years and when I was a teenager we went several times. The museum has a big boy 4-8-8-4 locomotive and I’d gotten to climb up in it and see it all but of course it’s not operational.
So when I saw that the only California stop for 4014 would be way up in NorCal I was bummed. But then a couple posts mentioned that 4014 would be making stops in Wyoming and Utah this week…. I thought no way I’d get that lucky….. but sure enough the 2 Utah stops coincided with my trip up here for the 4th. As luck would have it, 4014 made a short stop in Morgan utah, which is just 25 minutes from my friends’ place, not too far past snowbasin resort where I’ve been every trip up so I knew a bit of the area! I saw the timing it was gonna be in Morgan on the 4th and said “okay guys I’m making a side adventure up to Morgan for probably an hour or two about mid day” it was worth every minute!!
The reason that 4014 stopped in Morgan was so the the conductor could step off the train and do a ribbon cutting ceremony for the Morgan train depot which officially reopened to the public as a historical site after being able to get it on the historical registry and renovations. It was absolutely awesome. Drove in and parked just north of the depot on the road where pretty much everyone was hanging out and stood about 50 feet from the track and we all got to watch him roll in from the north to the train depot. Made the stop, did the ribbon cutting ceremony, sat for about a half hour and then rolled out. I got to be a whole 10 feet away from the tracks basically on the end of the platform as he rolled out and I’ll tell you witnessing a steam locomotive that weighs in at 1.2 MILLION POUNDS……. Up close and personal was Magical!!! I was just as excited as all the little kids that were there to see it. Hahahahah. I’m just a little kid trapped in an adults body!!! It was an awesome event. I chatted with this friendly gal that even dressed the part, a super cute 1940s flapper style dress, vintage sunglasses, heels and even a parasol. It was all so festive!
