Pictures 1983

"Over seventy years ago, in my early boyhood, I dreamed and wished that when I grew up to adulthood, that I could become a railroad engineer and be able to drive a steam locomotive. Well, that dream was never fulfilled until yesterday morning, when some local friends invited me over to Owosso, Michigan and allowed me to have this once-in-a lifetime experience along with some other steam locomotive enthusiasts.

The day was sunny and blue-skied when I pulled into Owosso about 9 a.m.and as I neared the rail yard, I could see the white billowing smoke over the treetops, and my heart skipped a beat, for I knew that the #1225 Pere Marquette was just around the corner.

After parking the car, I walked toward and into an old warehouse building that was part of the old Ann Arbor Railroad from days long gone by. Once inside, I was greeted by my friend TJ Gaffney, President of the Steam Railroading Institute, and he gave me a tour of this facility, which included old telegraphy equipment and paraphernalia, operating model railways, gift shop, and many local railroad things of interest!

After the tour, the #1225 engineer entered and announced that the Pere Marquette engine was ready for its first listed appointment. Needless to say, that scheduled person had not yet arrived, so TJ said to me, that why not take me first, which the engineer did..

As we walked out into the railroad yard there was this monstrous steam engine doing its thing, puffing steam, smoke and making many mechanical sounds. The engineer climbed the steep, tall ladder and entered the engine cab, and then turned to me and told me it was my turn to climb on-board. (at this point I did not realize how tall this ladder was....)

Once inside the engine cab, I smelled the aroma of a coal fire that I had not done since 1948 when I lived at the old house. I was then introduced to the fireman and my engineer whose name was "Barney". Besides looking at the massive fire end of the boiler with all of its associated piping, valves, gauges etc., Barney motioned me to the empty engineers seat and the first thing I had to do was to lean out the engine cab window so that the photographer could capture this event for me. (this photo is included).

Now we had to get down to some serious instruction as to how to get #1225 to move. I was shown how to release the driver wheel brakes, then how to "shift" the engine from forward to reverse. Then how to grip and operate the steam throttle. Next I was told to blow the whistle three times when backing up an two whistle blasts before going forward which alerts any one around the locomotive to get out-of-the way because that we were about to move.

Once that all the engine cab controls were properly set, the whistle blown, I reached for the 3 foot long steam throttle bar, pulled it backward towards me while I was looking at the ground outside, and the #1225 slowly started to move in reverse...At this point my attention was again now on the throttle and was encouraged to give #1225 more steam... WOW, I was amazed at how easy it was to move such a large object under my "total" control. Barney told me that even though that we had 120 psi steam pressure available, that I had this monster engine moving with only 45 psi of steam.... Now you talk about excitement, this was it!

Before I left the engine cab though, I grabbed my camera and snapped the inside of both the engineer and fireman's position as well of the trailing coal tender.