STRUTHERS, Ohio – The city has the good fortune of getting a stopover by the massive Big Boy locomotive July 12 and is moving full steam ahead to make the most of the occasion.
The city will throw a full-blown festival that day, with live music, food, vendors and other activities downtown.
There will be free parking in the city’s 20-acre lot at the river kayak launch area. Shuttle buses operated by Purple Cat and the city’s senior vans will take visitors to the tracks.
Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller is excited that her city was chosen as one of the few host cities for the iconic Union Pacific locomotive’s run across the country.
“We’re proud to showcase the good things we have going on downtown,” the mayor said.
The city has created a map that it will post on social media sites that will show parking areas and street closures.
The downtown area will be closed to vehicular traffic. Police officers will be at the scene to direct traffic heading through town and into the parking lots, police Chief Tim Roddy said. “It will be a fluid environment that we will keep adjusting to,” he said.
“We will block off [Lowellville Road, Bridge Street and State street] between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.,” Miller said. The festival will start at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m.
The Big Boy – Union Pacific Locomotive No. 4014 – is making its way across the country as part of the semiquincentennial celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
It will roll into downtown Struthers at 11:30 a.m. and come to a halt on the tracks where they cross Bridge Street. It will stay there until noon and then continue on its journey.
Visitors will be kept at least 20 feet away from the train during its stop. The locomotive is 11 feet wide but rides on tracks that are only about 5 feet wide.
At over 130 feet in length from its front end to the rear of its tender, the Big Boy is the largest steam engine ever built.
Of the 25 that were constructed for Union Pacific in the 1940s by American Locomotive of Schenectady, N.Y., No. 4014 is the only one that still runs.
The massive locomotive packs 7,000 horsepower. It was designed to carry heavy loads over the Wasatch mountain range in Utah, playing a role in the country’s World War II effort.
Union Pacific rebuilt No. 4014 and restored it to action in 2019.
Big Boy’s run through the eastern states is being done cooperatively with Norfolk Southern Railroad, which owns and operates the tracks in this region.
Live music will keep the party going in downtown Struthers before and after the train’s visit.
A stage will be set up in the parking lot of ECMSI, adjacent to the tracks, and Valley-based rock singer Candace Campana will sing the National Anthem as the train rolls up to Bridge Street.
Campana said she was thrilled to be selected by the mayor to sing at the event. Big Boy, she said, is “a symbol of American ingenuity, and it will be overwhelming to see its power as it makes its way through Struthers.”
The other bands that will perform have not yet been finalized.
Vendors will be located throughout the downtown area.
Alan Donatello, owner of Donavito’s restaurant, said he will be among the groups selling food and will have a beer tent.
The Struthers Regional Operators of Amateur Radio will assist with the logistics of the event by providing radio service.
The Big Boy has a local connection, said Bruce Silvernail of the Youngstown Model Railroad Association.
The sides of the cabooses built for the locomotives were made at Youngstown Steel Door in Austintown. That company’s product line included freight car walls and doors, he said.
Pictured at top: Mayor Catherine Cercone Miller, second from left, is joined by city officials and others who are planning the reception for the Big Boy locomotive.