Friday 10/4/2024 - UP 4014 Runs from Hearne to Houston
In early fall 2024, Union Pacific's 'Big Boy' steam locomotive venture out on a special that took it back down to the gulf cost for the third time in six years. This tour was the second of the Big Boy in 2024 and was deemed the "Heartland of America Tour". This tour started on Wednesday, August 28th and took the big locomotive east to Rochelle, Illinois. From there, she turned south, with a job up to Little Rock, Arkansas before stopping to rest in Brazos Yard just outside of Hearne, Tx.There she spent about 2 weeks for the crew to rest and perform a boiler wash. A full map of the "Heartland of America Tour" can be found here.
From Hearne, she was to travel down to Houston for an employee event on Saturday and then a day open to the public on Sunday. Then, she would leave Houston on Monday, 10/7, and travel up to Dallas for another employee event and public display day. She then traveled back to Cheyenne, Wy via Kansas City and Denver.
From Hearne, she was to travel down to Houston for an employee event on Saturday and then a day open to the public on Sunday. Then, she would leave Houston on Monday, 10/7, and travel up to Dallas for another employee event and public display day. She then traveled back to Cheyenne, Wy via Kansas City and Denver.
The morning of Friday October 4th found the 4014 sitting in Brazos Yard in Mumford, Tx, just outside of the major railroad hub of Hearne, Tx. The 4014 would be taking the Navasota subdivision from Brazos Yard south and then east into Bryan, Tx. From there she would turn south through College Station and onto Navasota where she would make a scheduled stop for the public. From there, she would move onto the Eureka Sub to head south to Hempsted, Tx before the sub turns east to parallel HW 290 for a run into Houston, Tx.
The morning started very early for me with a 6:00am departure from my house in Katy, Tx. I drove up to the house of Blake Bogs in Spring, Tx to pick him up and wanted to get a jump before traffic got bad. I picked him up and then headed north on HW 249 to Navasota where we cut north to College Station. After a Whataburger stop, we cut through College Station and headed out to Brazos Yard to the north west of the Bryan / College Station area, arriving about 9:00am, right at the scheduled departure time. Railfans were already everywhere. The tracking map on the Union Pacific Steam website showed the 4014 having to back up on the north side of the yard to cut over onto the Navasota Sub. We poked around the area a bit and settled for a spot at the Muse Rd Crossing on the north side of Brazos yard.
Here we sat and waited, constantly worried that 4014 was just going to pick its way through the yard and escape without us knowing. After about an hour, just before 10:00am a UP fright came up the cross over right at us. After she cleared, the red marker of the business car Lincoln appear. By 10:00am, the 4014 was backing her passenger car consist past the cross over switch in order to pull forward and onto the Navasota sub. Blake and I walked a little up the cross over and has a great view of the steam giant, even if it was exceedingly scenic. The safety on the 4014 popped as she rolled by us signaling that she had a full head of steam and was ready to get rolling.
It seemed that we were lucky as the 4014 was operating with a diesel helper! Not realized this at the time but a diesel accompanied the 4014 on most, if not all, its other legs on the tour.
The morning started very early for me with a 6:00am departure from my house in Katy, Tx. I drove up to the house of Blake Bogs in Spring, Tx to pick him up and wanted to get a jump before traffic got bad. I picked him up and then headed north on HW 249 to Navasota where we cut north to College Station. After a Whataburger stop, we cut through College Station and headed out to Brazos Yard to the north west of the Bryan / College Station area, arriving about 9:00am, right at the scheduled departure time. Railfans were already everywhere. The tracking map on the Union Pacific Steam website showed the 4014 having to back up on the north side of the yard to cut over onto the Navasota Sub. We poked around the area a bit and settled for a spot at the Muse Rd Crossing on the north side of Brazos yard.
Here we sat and waited, constantly worried that 4014 was just going to pick its way through the yard and escape without us knowing. After about an hour, just before 10:00am a UP fright came up the cross over right at us. After she cleared, the red marker of the business car Lincoln appear. By 10:00am, the 4014 was backing her passenger car consist past the cross over switch in order to pull forward and onto the Navasota sub. Blake and I walked a little up the cross over and has a great view of the steam giant, even if it was exceedingly scenic. The safety on the 4014 popped as she rolled by us signaling that she had a full head of steam and was ready to get rolling.
It seemed that we were lucky as the 4014 was operating with a diesel helper! Not realized this at the time but a diesel accompanied the 4014 on most, if not all, its other legs on the tour.
The chase was now on as Blake and I retreated back to my truck. He had hopped to get out of the Mumford area before the 4014 as it was just a two lane farm road (FM 50) in the area but no luck. Traffic backed up a bit but nothing that bad. In an effort to dodge the backup of where FM 50 meet HW 21, Blake directed me to take Sandy Point Rd (FM 1687). He has hopes we could catch the 4014 at the crossing there but no such luck. We continued on Sandy Point until it took us into Bryan, Tx. There is a part of the Navasota Sub in Bryan that is basically street running with both sides of West 27th street on each side of the Navasota Sub. Just after this stretch, there is a sharp right hand curve as the tracks turn south toward College Station. Blake thought it was worth a shot and Sandy Point Rd would take us right there basically so we went for it.
We made it to W 27th Street about two minutes before the 4014. Not enough time for me to get to a good vantage point for the curve but was able to get in a decent position for the unique street running section of the sub that sees a good bit of traffic every day still!
We made it to W 27th Street about two minutes before the 4014. Not enough time for me to get to a good vantage point for the curve but was able to get in a decent position for the unique street running section of the sub that sees a good bit of traffic every day still!
At this point we were at an impasse. Blake wanted to head into College Station but I thought it would be too congested to get into the area and then back out. Texas A&M and its 75,000 students just make it hard to get around in that area. So I made the executive decision and headed out to the HW 6 loop around the two cities. We then headed south and then but back toward the tracks in Millican, Tx, just south of College Station. I had used Google Maps to scout some road crossing options along the path and it was coming in handy! The presence of people told us that 4014 had not been through here yet. We chose to setup at the White Switch Rd crossing.
After the 4014 passed, we jumped on FM 2154 (Welborn Rd) and headed back to HW 6. The 4014 was scheduled to stop for 30 ish minutes in Navasota for the public to view the big locomotive. The backup on HW 6 going into Navasota showed how big the following was that day. We ventured into town but the line of cars made us cut up and back out of Navasota. I had two crossing picked between Navasota and the next town (and whistle stop) of Hempstead so we decided to head to the first one, FM 1227. We waited about 20 minutes for 4014 to appear. For some reason, she was loafing along at this point. The location made for some good panoramic shots!
Because of her slow speed, we decided to try to make it to the second road crossing we had picked out before Hempstead. A quick jaunt up to HW 6 and we raced south. Again, we arrived about 15 minutes before the 4014 to a pretty crowded road crossing of FM 1736 which featured 4014 going through a small cut.
From here we headed down to Hempstead that had most of downtown closed off for the 4014 and there was a very big crowd there! We parked a few block off and walked into the crowd trying to find Blake's dad. During this time 4014 appeared and we got to watch the crowd react to the massive engine. We then retreated back to the truck and decided to setup in the neighborhood just south of downtown where the Eureka Sub had a big sweeping curve to the east to Houston. Since the 4014 was running about an hour behind schedule (due to the late start), we were hopeful she would make a quick exit from Hempstead, but we still ended up standing at the curve for 45 minutes in the heat. But eventually we heard her whistle off and enjoyed the articulation of the 4-8-8-4 around the curve.
In choosing the curve spot, I had a big want to go just a mile or so out of Hempstead to a bridge I found on Google Maps. After the 4014 rolled by us, we made it to the truck and decided to make a go at it. We were able to cut through town and basically pace the 4014 at 15 mph out of Hempstead. We sped up and got ahead of hit, parked and sprint down to the bank for shots of the massive steam engine over Clear Creek.
After the bridge, the 4014 started to speed up and the small county road was packed as we tried to get out of the area. Once we got on HW 290, we were able to get close to 4014 but made a call to cut off toward the tracks a bit early. Finally back on 290 at Hockley, we used HW 290 to again catch up. We made one last attempt to pull off HW 290 at Cypress but was just a little too slow and managed to see 4014 fly by as we looked for a spot to pull over. At this point, it had been a long day and was about 3:00pm so we called it and headed north to drop Blake by off in Spring before I headed back to Katy.
The 4014 had an employees only event on Saturday and then a public event on Sunday. On Monday, she rolled back north through Spring, Tx, back to Navasota and overnighted in Bryan, Tx before heading back up to Dallas on Tuesday.
It was a great day of chasing and I do regret not being about to go back out Monday. Thanks for joining me Blake!
The 4014 had an employees only event on Saturday and then a public event on Sunday. On Monday, she rolled back north through Spring, Tx, back to Navasota and overnighted in Bryan, Tx before heading back up to Dallas on Tuesday.
It was a great day of chasing and I do regret not being about to go back out Monday. Thanks for joining me Blake!