When a locomotive is moved, such as the 4023, does it bother anyone that it is being placed a) outdoors, and b) to a place where future retrieval is uncertain at best? If I recollect correctly, 4023 sat in her stall in the Cheyenne roundhouse beside the 3985 and 5011 for a decade and a half before she was dumped. My understanding has been that she was overhauled and kept serviceable for a long time after the close of the stea era. Placeing her outdoors, as she has been for 25 years just doesn't seem well thought out. Placeing her on a bluff overlooking Omaha seems expedient, at best. UP claims they will never run a Big Boy again, but forever is a long time. Should the 4023 deteriorate in Kenefick Park, the only solution will be to cut her up on the spot.. Will that day come? How will she be conserved? I home that aspect of relocation has also been thought out.

Richard, I saw 4023 move to Omaha from Cheyenne "dead in train" 30 years ago. It was placed in front of the Omaha shops & was pretty well taken care of. When the Omaha shops were razed it was moved to North Omaha along with 6900 to a small out of the way place named Kennefeck Park where the elements were not kind to her. If you saw some of the pictures of the move the jacket is now rust streaked & so on. The locomotive was stored serviceable with 3985 in Cheyenne for years. It concerns me greatly what will happen to it now as it is one of my favorites. I would like to see a shelter constucted for it but doubt it will happen but we can always hope....................................................Wooly

I was sad to see the condition #4023 was in (rust streaks, etc.) as it was moved to its new location. UP sprung for a new paint job for sister display engine DDA40X #6900, so why not the Big Boy too? I remember many years ago being fascinated by pictures of #4023 and #3985 slumbering quietly together in the Cheyenne roundhouse in Ron Ziel's 'Twilight of Steam' book. I think it's a shame the last, once best-preserved Big Boy has been left to the elements the way it has. Still, two Big Boys are inside now, at Green Bay and the Forney Museum in Denver, and the #4014 is preserved in excellent condition at the LA county fairgrounds in Pomona, CA. The Big Boys at Steamtown and NMOT in St. Louis are regularly repainted. Only two of the eight Big Boys preserved are 'park engines', with all of the negative connotations that conjures up.

UP's overall record on preservation is a very good one, but this recent difficult and expensive Big Boy move does not seem in the best interests of the locomotive to me. Perhaps they will build it an appropriate protective shrine for it in the new location, we'll see. Such a shrine would have been better created in the Cheyenne roundhouse, where I last remember it in the 1960s, but sadly there are no remaining stalls left there long enough to contain it now.