By Tom Bentley, Popular Mechanics, June 13, 2019
Americans like things big. Big like Texas, big like the rolling Mississippi, big like the heaviest made-out-of-butter cow sculpture. They also like things with big meanings, like the Declaration of Independence, D-Day, and the driving of the golden spike to join the rails of the first transcontinental railroad, connecting the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines on May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah.
The 150th anniversary of that unifying event recently took place, and the commemoration welcomed a merging of that metaphorical big with the literal: the return to service of one of the most heralded—and biggest—locomotives of all time.