Trains: Jim Wrinn

BRYAN, Texas — Two of the most celebrated locomotives of our age — Big Boy steam locomotive No. 4014 and Union Pacific’s George H.W. Bush Presidential Library diesel No. 4141 — will team up Friday, according to local Texas media reports.



The steam train will run Houston to Bryan / College Station Friday with No. 4141 in the consist. The route is the same used last year when No. 4141 pulled the President’s funeral train. Indications are that No. 4141 will remain in the Big Boy train through the stop in Palestine, Texas, on Saturday.



No. 4141 toured the UP system following the funeral train late last year, and it is expected to be donated to the Bush Presidential Library in College Station. A feature story on the creation of the locomotive’s special paint scheme like that of Air Force One is in the 2019 edition of Locomotive Magazine, available on newsstands and from Kalmbachhobbystore.com.



No. 4014 is on the second half of its extensive two-month, 4,800-mile fall tour of the southwest and southern parts of the UP system in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad. Coverage of that tour is in the January and February editions of Trains, on the Trains Facebook page, and video will go into a DVD available in January about the locomotive's Midwestern, Southwestern, and Southern tours.

