UP Big Boy 4014 & RBMN T1 2102 Side By Side & Race At Penobscot, Mountain Top, PA 6/13/26

This past weekend the Reading & Northern hosted Union Pacific's steam team and UP 4-8-8-4 "Big Boy" #4014 during their coast to coast trip in celebration of America's 250th Birthday. In what ended up being a railroad event for the ages, one part of the event stuck out from the rest as something especially spectacular. During 4014's trip South Saturday on its way to Nesquehoning the RBMN set up two side by side races of the 4014 and their own pride of the fleet (former Reading Lines T1 #2102), one of which being between Mountain Top and Crestwood. The race was set to start at Penobscot Station, and with most of the chasing crowd setting up farther down the line to get the race of the two steam behemoths at speed, I opted to shoot at the starting line. Fortunately the T1 was first to blast off, and then followed by the Big Boy allowing for a shot of both engines whereas people set up on the other side were blocked. All in all it was a really fun afternoon, and I look forward to posting the rest of the footage from this amazing weekend in northeastern Pennsylvania. Enoy!