March 24, 2026 - M.T.H. Electric Trains will be releasing a 2026 Premier O Scale 4-8-8-4 Big Boy in FOUR different schemes during the Winter of 2026. The featured scheme will be Union Pacific's 2026 legendary No. 4014 Excursion locomotive slated to travel coast-to-coast beginning on March 29 when it departs its Cheyenne, Wyoming home base as part of America's 250th Semiquincentennial celebration. Two plated Coal Porter Hoppers are also being produced in special Union Pacific and Semiquincentennial liveries to complement the locomotives.
The MTH 2026 edition of No. 4014 Excursion will feature ALL-NEW tender and locomotive details to accurately reflect the U.P.'s real-life 4014.
- PTC Detail On The Side, Front And Roof Of The Tender
- Additional Pipe Detail On The Tender
- Prototypical Changes To The Water Hatch Detail
- U.P. Shield On The Cab Floor
- PTC Control Detail Inside The Cab
- Smoke Deflectors On Locomotive
- American Flags On Pilot Deck
CLICK ON THE IMAGE BELOW TO SEE THE NEW DETAIL ADDITIONS
Each of these prototypical locomotive schemes will be offered in both 3-rail and 2-rail configurations. All will be produced in limited quantities and are expected to begin shipping to M.T.H. Authorized Retailers in December 2026.
Check out each of the offerings in the scrolling list at the bottom of the page.
PROTOTYPE HISTORY
Just months before Pearl Harbor, the American Locomotive Company delivered the first Big Boy to the Union Pacific Railroad. The UP's Department of Research and Mechanical Standards had designed the locomotive for a specific task: to pull a 3600-ton train unassisted over the Wasatch Mountains in Utah. While the Big Boy is often cited as the biggest steam locomotive ever built, in fact it is not. The Norfolk & Western's Y6 and A, the Duluth Missabe & Iron Range's Yellowstones, and the Chesapeake and Ohio's Alleghenys were all in the same league, and some exceeded the Big Boy's weight and power.
But in the battle for hearts and minds, the Big Boy won. Perhaps it was the name, simple and direct, scrawled on a locomotive under construction by an Alco shop worker. Maybe it was timing, as the Big Boys hit the road just when America needed symbols to rally around. Maybe the UP's publicity department just did a better job of telling the world what great equipment they had. Whatever the reason, the Big Boy captured the imagination of railfans and the American public over the ensuing years, perhaps more than any other steam engine. In many ways it is the symbolic locomotive of the American West, as big and powerful as the country it sped through.
Writer Henry Comstock beautifully described the Big Boy's place at the apex of steam engine history: "A Union Pacific 'Big Boy' was 604 tons and 19,000 cubic feet of steel and coal and water, poised upon 36 wheels spaced no wider apart than those of an automobile. That it could thunder safely over undulating and curved track at speeds in excess of 70 miles an hour was due in large measure to the efforts of two long-forgotten pioneers. As early as 1836, the basic system that held its wheels in equalized contact with the rails was patented by a Philadelphian named Joseph Harrison; and a French technical writer, Anatole Mallet, first thought to couple two driving units heel to toe below one boiler in 1874."
Check out each of the offerings in the scrolling list at the bottom of the page.
