This was a really good rebuild. The locomotive was brought up to its original specs. This was not a patch job. Many parts were remade from scratch. Now UP can use it all over their system for PR purposes.
UP also has an ALCO Northern, which has much parts commonality with the Big Boy. So they took the opportunity to re-make many parts on both locomotives.
There's some hobbyist rebuilding of locomotives in the SF Bay Area at the Niles Canyon Railway / Pacific Locomotive Association, but progress is measured in decades.
Niles Canyon Railway guy here. We’ve got a lot of factions working on a lot of projects. Steam, diesel, wood passenger cars...you name it. It’s an all-volunteer organization, so we do the best we can with volunteer labor and budget. Come check out the recently restored 1909 “Skookum” compound steam locomotive!
That's okay, but in my opinion you should instead hate the laws that cause that kind of behavior. (The site doesn't geoblock Asia for example.)
The law's intentions don't matter IMO -- just look at it this way: site operators not based in Europe and not targeting European users suddenly have to invest dozens or hundreds of hours of development to add significant (and most likely architecturally ugly) changes to their systems to accommodate highly unlikely requests from the occasional visitor from Europe, or risk breaking the law and risk not being able to set foot in Europe ever again.
Geoblocking is easy to implement and most likely already in place because these sites aren't allowed to show their content in e.g. North Korea.
More like, going again - the Big Boys were taken out of service in the late 1950's, early 1960's.
This one was sitting in a train museum in California for 50 years before the Union Pacific got it back; they them spent several years restoring it to running condition.
Talyllyn on its eponymous railway in Wales has been in regular service since 1864. The big boys are actually some if the youngest steam engines, built right at the very end of the age of steam in the US.
As orpheline said, it was at a museum in Pomona, California, for decades. It's going back there October 12th and 13th (full schedule for the trip not available yet). If you're going to go see it, though, be prepared for an unreasonably large amount of traffic, even by Southern California standards. Like, an absolutely absurd amount of traffic. It's amazing how much attention the Big Boy gets.
If you're interested in big trains, there's a decommissioned one in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute: https://www.fi.edu/exhibit/train-factory
It's pretty cool to walk in and around it.
UP also has an ALCO Northern, which has much parts commonality with the Big Boy. So they took the opportunity to re-make many parts on both locomotives.
There's some hobbyist rebuilding of locomotives in the SF Bay Area at the Niles Canyon Railway / Pacific Locomotive Association, but progress is measured in decades.