ALTOONA, Pennsylvania — In Virginia Lee Burton’s classic children’s book, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Mulligan often boasted that his steam shovel, Mary Anne, “could dig as much in a day as a hundred men could dig in a week, but he had never been quite sure that was true.”
By the end of the story, Mulligan never gets the chance to prove his boast because electric, diesel, and gasoline shovels have taken away nearly all of Mary Anne’s work. Still, he finds an ingenious way for the old steam shovel to remain useful.
When Burton wrote those words in her 1939 children’s classic, she was capturing the painful sunset of an era. It was a lament for the living, breathing machines of American progress, cast aside for the newest efficient technology.
For more than half a century, that sentiment seemed final. The same technological advances that displaced Mary Anne also rendered America’s steam locomotives obsolete. The machines that had helped build our cities, transported critically needed goods during World War II, and connected the nation from coast to coast were, in a remarkably short time, dumped into gravel pits, relegated to history books, or left to rust in forgotten rail yards.
But this week in Altoona, the Union Pacific Railroad’s Big Boy No. 4014 offered a thunderous rebuttal. Much of the credit belongs to its engineer, Ed Dickens, who has spent his adult life serving his country, first in the military and now by helping bring this historic steam locomotive back to life. In doing so, he has shown that Americans still value hard work, shared history, and community. Across the country, crowds have gathered along city streets, farmland, and small-town rail lines just to watch Dickens and Big Boy thunder past.
Rolling into town earlier this week at 1.2 million pounds and 133 feet long, this steel titan proved that steam engines are not just relics of the past, but they still hold a profound utility. No, No. 4014 is no longer hauling daily commercial freight tonnage. Its modern utility is something much more vital to the nation’s health: It serves as a massive, kinetic connective tissue for the American spirit, pulling a fragmented culture together in a way no modern diesel locomotive ever could.
Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific coordinated their staff to manage the steady flow of rail enthusiasts. Engineers, mechanics, and other employees directed visitors to free parking at Peoples Natural Gas Field, home of the minor-league Altoona Curve, where hundreds of school buses transported them to the rail yard to spend time with Big Boy.
Jim Vena, CEO of Union Pacific, told the Washington Examiner at Norfolk Southern’s Rose Yard that it has been remarkable to watch people across the country respond to Big Boy’s journey. The locomotive has traveled 7,000 miles through 14 states, nearly 100 cities, and countless small towns and stretches of farmland as part of America’s 250th anniversary celebration.
“It has really exceeded our expectations,” Vena said, adding, “Watching the young kids and the kids at heart show up has been absolutely wonderful. We need to do this again. Heck, we will do this again.”
Like Mike Mulligan’s beloved Mary Anne, the Big Boys were built for a crisis. First fired up in December 1941, these western giants were engineered to haul heavy wartime freight over Utah’s punishing Wasatch Range, keeping the veins of the American war effort pumping.
But by the early 1960s, the fires were dropped. The railroad world, like the construction yards in Burton’s book, chose the quiet efficiency of diesel.
The resurrection of No. 4014 is a fitting symbol of the enduring strength of the working-class communities it visits. Modern experts had widely dismissed the idea of restoring the 600-ton locomotive to working order as impossible.
Enter Dickens, now Union Pacific’s senior manager of heritage operations. Serving as both an ambassador for railroad history and a tireless tinkerer, Dickens led a team that spent years dismantling the engine piece by piece in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and custom-machining obsolete components to bring it roaring back to life.
Dressed unironically in bib overalls, Dickens and conductor Ted waved joyfully to the thousands gathered in Altoona, once the epicenter of American railroading and home to the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA), who was in attendance more as a rail fan than a governor, told the Washington Examiner that at one point, Altoona had more employees in the railroad industry than any other part of Pennsylvania.
“And of course, Pennsylvania Railroad was the largest, most profitable railroad in the world, and we still see its roots trace back to Norfolk Southern’s operations here,” he said.
“Trains are part of the fabric of who we are as Pennsylvanians, and I think you’ve been with Big Boy making its way through Pennsylvania, with over a quarter of a million people so far having turned out to see it, recognize that,” he said.
Shapiro said the outpouring of people across the commonwealth showed that Americans still want to come together. Events such as Big Boy’s journey through Pennsylvania’s towns, he said, demonstrate that the nation’s social fabric is far stronger than social media would suggest.
“We are all here for love of country, love of Pennsylvania, and love of trains,” he added.
Operating a machine twice the size of a modern diesel requires months of logistical work, reviewing track clearances inch by inch so it can navigate overhead bridges and tight curves.
With 32,000 miles of track open to it, Dickens and his team turned this locomotive into a traveling testament to what American hands can build and maintain.
When Dickens waves to the crowd, they truly give him a hero’s welcome. They don’t see a corporate executive — they see a craftsman who refused to let America’s inheritance die in a scrap yard.
It was entirely fitting that this mechanical homecoming took place in Altoona, the legendary heart of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Founded in 1849, the city was built to help conquer the Allegheny Mountains. Five years later, immigrant laborers armed with picks and shovels carved out the Horseshoe Curve, opening a vital commercial route to the West.
By the mid-1920s, the Altoona Works had become the world’s largest railroad manufacturing complex, employing more than 16,000 workers. The families who live there today still carry that industrial heritage. When they look at Big Boy, they do not see a strange relic — they see the same grit, sweat, and pride their grandfathers brought to the work of building the nation.
Altoona Mayor Matt Pacifico could hardly contain his delight as thousands of visitors poured into the city — not only to see Big Boy, but also to patronize local businesses and attractions, including the Railroaders Memorial Museum, Altoona’s distinctive style of pizza, the region’s renowned trout streams, and nearby DelGrosso’s Amusement Park.
YOUNG WASHINGTON: HISTORY’S ULTIMATE ORIGIN STORY
In the final pages of the children’s book, Mike and Mary Anne find a new purpose, with the old steam shovel becoming the heating heart of Popperville’s town hall. No. 4014 has found a similarly noble calling. As it leaves the rail yard and winds through the historic curves of Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, it will trail white steam across the blue sky and leave thousands of spectators with memories to last a lifetime.
The steam engine is still useful. It reminds an anxious nation that the sweat, ambition, and community fabric that originally built America never truly went away. It was just waiting for the right whistle to wake it back up.