Journey to Cheyenne

Date2015

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions36 x 60 in. (91.4 x 152.4 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of The Hilbert Collection

Object number2020.026

DescriptionIn 1941, the Union Pacific Railroad began building 25 large steam locomotives to haul freight trains between Ogden, Utah and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Originally named "Wasatch"-type locomotive, they were reassigned the name “Big Boy” after an unknown employee scribbled the name on the smokebox of a newly assembled locomotive. The name has stuck ever since.

Eventually, all the Big Boy-type locomotives were retired from service, and many were donated to various museums. The Locomotive & Railroad Historical Society received this one, the 4014, in 1961, and it was displayed for the next 52 years at their Railgiants museum in Pomona, California. The Union Pacific Railroad then re-acquired the 4014 to make her run again for the sesquicentennial celebration of the Golden Spike ceremony in 2019.

“The Big Boy was very complicated creature to paint,” Mazza says. “Not only because of her massive structure consisting of hundreds of pipes and thousands of rivets and tubes, but also due to the unique history of these bold machines. I was motivated to paint her because of the difficult challenge of composing the complicated details of her outer beauty without forsaking the inner significance and history of who she was -- and what she became again.”

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