Published July 03. 2026 12:03PM
Countless thousands packed downtown Tamaqua and vicinity on the hottest day of the year Thursday to welcome Union Pacific Railroad’s Big Boy 4014, world’s largest operating steam locomotive. Big Boy, weighing 600 tons, navigated Tamaqua’s historic 1831 Little Schuylkill Coal and Navigation Railroad line, first in America to haul coal using a steam engine. The train came into Jim Thorpe Wednesday night and headed through Nesquehoning to Tamaqua before going on to Reading. Big Boy is headed to Philadelphia for Independence Day and America 250. With temperatures in the 90s, one person was treated in Tamaqua and another in Jim Thorpe for a heat-related illness. Later Thursday, more than 100 people waiting for the train were treated for heat-related illnesses and 35 were hospitalized in Berks County, Pennsylvania DONALD R. SERFASS/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS
Countless thousands packed downtown Tamaqua and the vicinity on the hottest day of the year Thursday to welcome Union Pacific Railroad’s Big Boy 4014, the world’s largest operating steam locomotive. Big Boy, weighing 600 tons, navigated Tamaqua’s historic 1831 Little Schuylkill Coal and Navigation Railroad line, first in America to haul coal using a steam engine. The train came into Jim Thorpe Wednesday night and headed through Nesquehoning to Tamaqua before going on to Reading. Big Boy is headed to Philadelphia for Independence Day and America 250. With temperatures in the 90s, one person was treated in Tamaqua and another in Jim Thorpe for a heat-related illness. Later Thursday, more than 100 people waiting for the train were treated for heat-related illnesses and 35 were hospitalized in Berks County, Pennsylvania. DONALD R. SERFASS/SPECIAL TO THE TIMES NEWS