Children sat on shoulders, some people peddled "Big Boy" buttons, stickers, and other wares. People flooded the town of Nokomis and other central Illinois towns to take a peer at one of the largest engines in the entire world. The 4014 Big Boy stopped in Nokomis around 3 PM on Tuesday before heading off to St. Louis for an overnight stop.  Crowds gathered and roads were shut down as the massive engine blew its whistles and bells.  The engineers climbed over it like little ants doing maintenance work before the engine roared to life and slowly picked up steam leaving the station. People snapped pictures and videos like they were at a rock concert with their phones up in the air.

The Big Boy will be making stops in Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas before its final stops in Colorado. Ed Dickens, with the Steam Team, spoke in Rochelle, Illinois holding a question and answer session and talked a little about why there is only one Big Boy left in operation.

Twenty-five Big Boys were built exclusively for Union Pacific Railroad, the first of which was delivered in 1941. The locomotives were 132 feet long and weighed 1.2 million pounds.  There are seven Big Boys on public display in various cities around the country. They can be found in St. Louis, Missouri; Dallas, Texas; Omaha, Nebraska; Denver, Colorado; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Cheyenne, Wyoming.