This post was provided by News Now Warsaw
By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Events kick off Friday night and continue through the weekend in Warsaw in celebration of America’s upcoming 250th birthday, but area residents can get a head start and enjoy a glimpse of living history Friday afternoon.
That’s when a historic locomotive, the Union Pacific’s Big Boy 4014, steamrolls across much of northern Indiana, including Kosciusko County.
The train is in the midst of a coast-to-coast trip commemorating America’s 250th anniversary and will pass through numerous local towns on Friday.
The only scheduled whistle stop in Indiana will be in Argos in Marshall County, but it then continues east through Kosciusko County.
Tim Croy, a Mentone Town Council member, said he and others decided to celebrate the trains passing through town with a block party.
“Not every day do you see an old steam engine go through Mentone,” Croy said Tuesday.
The fire department will be serving upward of 100 hot dogs and will start grilling at about 2 p.m. Free snow cones and ice cream (for a charge)will also be available.
Croy says it’s a chance to see living history and celebrate a milestone.
“We decided that, ‘Hey, let’s do something, you know, because it’s not every day you see the old steam engine go through Mentone,’ ” Croy said Tuesday.
The event is free and everyone is encouraged to gather at the parking lot on the west side of the fire station to watch the train pass along the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks.
Croy announced the block party on a Facebook page he oversees, Mentone News and Information.
“I think we’ve got like over 200 people who liked it. So I’m guessing we’ll probably run out of hot dogs, but … it gives people an opportunity to come and check it out,” Croy said.
Union Pacific’s ‘Big Boy’ No. 4014 is the world’s largest operating steam engine, weighing in at 1.2 million pounds. Twenty-five Big Boys were commissioned for Union Pacific, the first being delivered in 1941, where they were used to haul war-related equipment at the time, according to information from its website.
Arrival times are tentative, but the train is expected to depart from Argos around 3 p.m. and then pass through Tippeccanoe, Mentone, Claypool, and Sidney before heading to South Whitley and Fort Wayne.
