Moment trainspotter falls off world’s largest locomotive and fractures his spine as Big Boy 4014 steams across the US

Millions of Americans have flocked across the country to see the largest locomotive make its trip across the US in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, including an unlucky Nebraska man who fell off the train and fractured his spine. 

Trevor Allen Bentley, 34, of Kearney, has been a long-time train fan and has always dreamed of riding in the cab of Big Boy 4014, a Union Pacific train that is the largest operating steam locomotive in the world. 

It’s making a celebratory cross-country run for America’s 250th birthday across 14 states, starting in California in April and ending in its home state of Wyoming at the end of July. 

So when Bentley heard the 133-foot-long manually operated train was stopping in his hometown, he emailed the rail giant and asked to take a ride in the cab. 

Union Pacific agreed to allow the local writer to ride the hulking train 40 miles from Kearny to Grand Island, he told Cowboy State Daily. 

Unfortunately, his dreams were cut short when Bentley fell off the train as he was boarding, video posted to social media showed. 

He had one more rung to clear on the rain-soaked ladder into the cab when he suddenly slipped and fell eight feet, landing flat on his back on the rails. 

Not only did Bentley fracture his back, the fall caused the train to delay departure by 30 minutes. 

‘I felt fine,’ he told Cowboy State Daily about the fall. ‘Obviously, I was sore. But I just wanted to get up.

‘I just couldn’t get that last step in.’ 

The train, unfortunately, would take off to Grand Island without him on May 28. 

‘A boyhood dream got dashed as I fell eight feet off of Big Boy 4014 before I got the ride of a lifetime,’ the lifelong train enthusiast told the outlet. 

The train would go on to make stops in Omaha, Chicago, Buffalo, and Philadelphia, among other smaller locations, on its eastbound journey before making its way back westward. 

Its journey has drawn millions of visitors, including to a small Ohio town called Fostoria, which is known to locals as Train City USA, as three major rail lines converged at the town’s station. The crossing of the paths is known as the Iron Triangle. 

More than 46,000 people crammed into Norfolk Southern’s railyard just outside of the town of 13,000 on Tuesday, with locals and tourists alike beginning to line up to get in around 4am. 

The gigantic train was scheduled to take off at 9am on Wednesday, but the public was able to view the behemoth the day before, starting at 8am. Visitors were able to tour the inside of some of the passenger cars, as well as take photos on the train and more. 

‘It was awesome!’ Zach Stumpf, of Fostoria, told the Daily Mail. 

Ward 1 City Councilwoman Amy Mendoza told the Daily Mail that the moment was truly special for all of Fostoria. 

‘A tremendous amount of time and effort went into making this event possible,’ Mendoza said. ‘It meant so much to me – and to all of us, really. Fostoria is a small, close-knit community with so much to offer.

‘We are proud of its rich railroad history, and we want to continue to make history here.’  

Thousands of cars lined the roadway to get in, with some never making it due to limited space, Fostoria Mayor Don Mennel told the Daily Mail.

The event lasted until 3pm, but organizers started turning away cars around 2pm. Mennel believes just as many visitors got turned away as those who made it in. 

‘It was just packed,’ he said. Thousands also showed up to view the train when it stopped at Fostoria’s station on June 6 for a mere 15 minutes.  

‘I think it supports the fact that we’re kind of a rail city and a rail center,’ the mayor told the Daily Mail.  

Visitors came all the way from Oregon, Washington, Tennessee, and Florida, as well as Canada, local paper, The Review Times, and Destination Seneca County, which hosted Big Boy-themed events, said. 

Jacob Edwards and his family came all the way from Tennessee to see the train at the Fostoria stop, he told The Toledo Blade. 

‘We wanted to make sure we had an opportunity to see it,’ he said. 

They arrived around 4am, where they were fourth in line to get into the railyard. 

John Mayer, a railroad conductor, traveled 50 miles from Walbridge, Ohio, to the small town to see the train with his four-year-old son, he told The Blade.

‘Most people see trains and think: “Oh no, I’m going to be waiting for an hour,”‘ he said. ‘It’s just beautiful to see the good side of the railroad, and how the railroads built this country.’ 

And that’s exactly what Union Pacific wanted people to get out of the train’s journey. 

‘Union Pacific embarked upon this tour to celebrate America, but to also celebrate and remind folks of the vital role that railroads have played in helping to build this country, helping to connect communities, helping to connect businesses, and fostering trade,’ railroad spokesperson Robynn Tysver, who spoke to the Daily Mail while onboard Big Boy, said.

‘Railroads continue to play a very important part in the nation’s supply chain, hauling about 11 percent of the freight. So, at the end of the day, we wanted to celebrate America, and celebrate the role that railroads have played in helping to build this country.’    

The small town of Fostoria made the list of stops due to lots of people advocating for it, Tysver said.  

Fostoria also made history on Tuesday, as 630 people formed together to make the largest human image of a train to commemorate Big Boy’s stop in Fostoria, one of the longest stops on the journey.

‘The stars aligned for Fostoria for us to hold it there,’ Tysver said. 

The Northwestern Ohio town was chosen due to its central location, where people from all over the state, including Toledo, Cleveland, and Columbus, would be able to make the journey. It was also on its route back to Wyoming, she said. 

Big Boy’s journey started on April 10 in Sacramento, California, at historic milepost zero, where the Central Pacific Railroad began construction on the first transcontinental railroad line in 1863. 

The year before, then-President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act, which authorized the construction of the transcontinental railroad during the Civil War. 

The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads were directed to construct a new public-private network. Central built the Western leg, while Union started in Omaha, Nebraska, to build the Eastern part. 

‘He essentially created the Union Pacific Railroad,’ Tysver told the Daily Mail. 

The train stopped in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July, where it sat on display for two days. The railroad decided the Pennsylvania town would be the halfway mark as it is the birthplace of America. 

‘It was a very special place for us to celebrate Big Boy, and to celebrate in Philadelphia,’ Tysver said. 

Big Boy 4014 is the only operational train of the fleet of 25, which were built in Schenectady, New York, near Albany, between 1941 and 1944. 

Each of the trains weigh 1.2 million pounds, which is three times the size of today’s diesel locomotive; stands at 17 feet tall, and are 133 feet long, which is a little over half the size of a Boeing 747. 

Union Pacific commissioned the massive trains in 1941 ‘because we needed power to go over the Wasatch Mountain Range in Utah,’ Tysver told the Daily Mail. 

‘They were called the Giants on the Rail,’ she said. 

The trains ran for 20 years, primarily traveling between Wyoming and Utah. They were slowly replaced in the 1950s and 1960s by diesel trains, as steam locomotives require a lot more maintenance. 

After the Big Boys were decommissioned, most were scrapped for metal. Only eight trains survived, Tysver said. 

In 2013, Union Pacific started to think about putting together a commemorative train route for the 150th anniversary of the railroad and eventually the 250th birthday of the US. 

In 2014, the railroad acquired one of the eight existing trains and took 2.5 years to restore it – making it the largest locomotive restoration project in recent history, Tysver said. 

Every year since the 150th anniversary of Union Pacific, the train had made a journey across the company’s rail network. 

Ahead of the country’s semiquincentennial, they began communicating with other railroads – such as CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Reading Blue Mountain & Northern Railroad – to use their rail lines to make the cross-country trip. 

It’s the train’s first time traveling through Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York since its initial trip to Wyoming in the 1940s to start work, Tysver said. 

Now, millions of Americans have seen and interacted with Big Boy, which is ‘thrilling’ to Union Pacific, Tysver said. 

There’s roughly 30 to 40 people on board the train at all times during its journey, with 12 of them operating the steam engine. 

Tysver said she’s among the many who didn’t even know what a Big Boy was until recently. When she joined the railroad five years ago, she was clueless. 

‘I’ve been on every tour since,’ she said. ‘I think I come at it from the perspective that it’s amazing to me how much folks love this engine.

‘So many times, we have antiques or important pieces of history that are on display in museums, but Big Boy isn’t on display. 

‘It is an antique. It is an important piece of history, but it’s operating. It’s operating as this machine that you can hear, you can smell, you can feel as it rumbles down the track. You can hear that lonesome, beautiful train whistle from miles away.

‘And I think that’s what’s driving it is nostalgia.’ 

The journey will end in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on July 29, where the train will go back to Union Pacific’s shop for maintenance and where it is stored when it is not on the rails. 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Bentley for comment.