I saw a post on Trainorders.com about the start of the move of Union Pacific 4-8-8-4 4014 across the parking lot of the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds at Pomona and decided to get some pictures of this historic move. We learned last July that Union Pacific had chosen Union Pacific 4014 from those Big Boys on display around the country to restore to operating condition. This particular one belonged to the RailGiants Train Museum operated by the Southern California Chapter of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society. In exchange, Union Pacific would donate a former Missouri Pacific SD40-2 and a caboose.
I finished my second week of my new job at Heninger Elementary School in Santa Ana and after driving home to change clothes, started the drive to Pomona.
I was a participant at a night photo session with Union Pacific 4014 on the night of 8/17/2013.
Big Boy 4014 was moved a few track panels away from where the night photo session occurred on 11/9/2013 when Bill Compton and I stopped by on that day. Heavy traffic on California Highway 57 prompted me to exit at Via Verde and I took that to Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park to the LA County Fairgrounds to bypass accidents and idiot drivers. I parked and walked around the front of the steam engine then waited for some people to move before I started my picture taking on a very cloudy and damp afternoon.
Union Pacific 4014 was moved yesterday from where it had been six days before.
Eleven pieces of panel track were now being used and once the steam crew negotiated this curve, they expected to move a little faster.
Views of the track crew working on panel track. Three more panels were needed to be put together before the engine could be moved to that end of the track.
They have to get the engine over to the Metrolink tracks at the north end of the parking lot.
The ninth of the eleven pieces panel track was being put into place in these pictures.
The engine was across from Union Pacific DD40AX 6915 at the RailGiants Train Museum.
You can see the Metrolink train at the north end of the parking lot, which is where Union Pacific 4014 is headed.
Two more pieces of panel track to be added and put together before the engine will be rolled down to the next end of track.
Two more pictures on the way back to the car, then I returned down California Highway 57 home to Santa Ana.
| RETURN TO THE MAIN PAGE |
