Keith “Shin” Schindler
Anyone remember Big Boy Burgers? Not sure if they’re still around, maybe up North, but that came to mind when I heard of the Big Boy touring. Can’t remember when I saw a Big Boy burger joint. Never saw THE Big Boy in real life, until this year.
Trains. I’ve always been interested, although I never lived near any tracks, until the last few years.
My first train, that I remember, was my Dad’s old Lionel set, which didn’t have the engine. I added some paper windows and light to the coal car, and made it the engine. I pushed it around the track for hours, days, months, years, and then . . . . It went away.
I hate the fact that I don’t have that set.
Later, my Dad and I had an HO set. Nothing fancy, a board with fake grass, a brown road, and trains. We did have fun. That set went away, too; to the neighbor boys next door.
Later, my Son Joe and I had a train set. We never did it justice, just track on a board and ran it around. I actually have N Scale train stuff stashed.
Oh, there was the Breckenridge Park train, in San Antonio. It was, may still be, a mini gauge train that ran around the park, hauling passengers. Loved those rides, before I moved to Dallas at 8 years.
Since then, I’ve only ridden the Six Flags train, and recently, The Texas State Railroad train.
None of my train experience compares to The Big Boy, coming through my town of Ennis, Texas.
Tiffnie Schindler Gonzales
In March of 2020, myself and many other people very suddenly transitioned to working from home full time due to the Covid pandemic. It became apparent pretty quickly that most of our neighbors weren’t used to being home as much; complaints about the train that runs through our small town were a hot topic in our local Facebook group and it could be pretty comical at times.
I’ve always associated the sound of a train horn with fond memories from my grandparent’s house, we’re coming up on 3 years in our home and some days I don’t even notice it. A couple of close neighbor friends and I started using the train as a reason to check in on one another throughout the day; her being an over the phone nurse with several patients in the hospital at the time and her husband fighting his own health battles, our train texts were a silly and welcomed distraction.
I remember her mentioning the steam engine to me before all the chaos started, she was excited to track it’s path and watch it roll through town but we’d both put it on the mental back burner until articles began circulating on social media. Everyone was talking about it and she excitedly started planning a “watch party” for friends and neighbors as their property offered a front row view.
The day of the event, it was jokingly mentioned in our neighborhood Facebook group that it was the first day ever for our town to be excited to hear the train. Cars started lining up at any empty spot along the tracks and people walked from their homes with coolers and lawn chairs. At our friend’s house, neighbors that had never met and friends that hadn’t seen each other in too long gathered outside sharing friendly conversation and laughs.
I’m not sure what I expected when Big Boy 4014 rolled through but it definitely was not the beast we were greeted with. No. 4014 is the only operating Big Boy of the eight that still remain in existence, weighing around 1,200,000lbs and reaching a maximum speed of 80mph. We were very lucky to to get to see this piece of history up close and in action.
