The Railroad Runs in the Family!

On one of our RV trips, we had stopped in the town of Claremore, Oklahoma, in 2024 to visit the Will Rogers Museum. While in the museum, we kept hearing that the "Big Boy" would come through the next day and stop for only 30 minutes before heading to the next stop. Everyone in town seemed excited and planned to attend. We learned that the "Big Boy" was the largest steam-engine freight-hauling locomotive that was ever built and was traveling across the United States. Union Pacific built 25 "Big Boys" in the 1940s, and eight survived. In 2013, the railroad reacquired No. 4014 from a museum in Pomona, California, and restored it to running condition in 2019. It's now the world's largest operating steam locomotive and tours the country for special occasions. So we walked to the designated area to watch the "Big Boy" slowly enter town, along with thousands of other people. It was pretty spectacular; the locomotive was huge, and everyone from senior citizens to toddlers came out to show their love for trains!

That love for trains usually goes back to childhood. One of the places we lived in Baton Rouge had a railroad track across the street that probably transported freight from the nearby Mississippi River port. At the time, Baton Rouge's major industry was (and probably still is) petrochemical, but ships and barges also transported other goods up and down the river. But as small children, we found joy in seeing the train with its red caboose pass by every day, waving and frantically hand-signaling to the engineer to please blow his air horn. Every so often, we would be rewarded with a continuous F major triad as the train clanked and rumbled past us. And, like most kids who waved at the crews riding those trains and got a wave back, I found that a lifelong love of trains had begun.

For some of us, trains are also special because we had relatives who worked for major railroad companies such as the Union Pacific, Southern Pacific, and the Santa Fe. One in particular in my direct line who worked for a railroad was John Henderson Ellis, my second-great-grandfather. ^[1] My mother had mentioned she heard a story from her father that his wife, Isabelle "Bell" (Riney/Riny) Ellis, had taught her husband to read and write, which allowed him to get a good job with the railroad company and provide for his family. He worked for the Santa Fe "for many years," looking after "their land and timber interest on his territory," until six days before he died.^[2]So, what's not to love about trains!

1. Obituary of John Henderson Ellis, "Died" column, Weekly Town Talk (Alexandria, Louisiana), 21 December 1929, page 4, column 5; database with images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/212892284/ : accessed 10 September 2026).↩︎
2. Ibid.↩︎