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Steam train billows through Washington
WASHINGTON — Dozens of trainspotters gathered around the railroad tracks in Washington on Thursday, some of them traveling for hours or even days to reach the city, while others walked from just a few blocks up the road.
All who made their pilgrimage hoped to see a remarkably rare spectacle: a drive-by from “the Empress” 2816, a steam-powered locomotive built in 1930, and restored to working order in the last few decades. The engine was headed north after a three-country trip celebrating a merger between Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads, dubbed the “Final Spike Anniversary Steam Tour.“
Steven Rainey came to town from Georgia for the affair, after his family planned their summer vacation around the event, then replanned it after the tour was rescheduled. They parked their car along Fourth Avenue around 10:30 a.m. and settled in, shaded by an umbrella and their car, with doors propped open.
His enthusiasm had not waned by the afternoon. Rainey continued to watch eagerly to the west, staring down the tracks in anticipation of the coming train and occasionally tending to a tripod-mounted camera that would record its approach. Thursday was his first time seeing the locomotive in-person.
“This engine, it’s the only survivor of its class and the only operating (one) of its particular wheel arrangement in the world,” Rainey said. “You don’t see steam engines like this on class I railroads nearly as much as you used to … I’m pretty excited.”
Many of the gathered enthusiasts found themselves waiting upward of an hour for the train to pass through. An online tracking tool provided by Canadian Pacific Kansas City provided only infrequent updates on the engine’s location, jumping from Kansas City to Ottumwa around 1:30 p.m., and still showing it in the Wapello County seat even as it rumbled out of Washington.
Steven Brown spent his whole day chasing the Empress from one stop to the next. He waited over two hours to snap a photo of it in Chillicothe, Missouri in the morning, and captured a shot of it pulling out of Ottumwa before racing up the road to catch it in Washington. His social media features shots of the tour’s passage through British Columbia, Texas and San Jerónimo, Guanajuato in Mexico, among other places over the last several months.
Patience is a virtue for photographers like Brown, who said he’d waited for similar shots before, anywhere from a few seconds to an entire day.
“It’s a steam engine,” he said with a laugh, when asked what made the trip worth it. “This is my thing. I’ve been doing this for 50 years, all over the world … anywhere they run a steam engine, I go.”
Stacy Rinner, a Washington native, was thrilled about the tour as well. She saw the train move through town for the first half of its continent-spanning tour in May, and waited around two hours on Thursday to see it roll once more by the city’s former depot building, now a residential and office space.
Like many self-proclaimed “railfans,” Rinner finds the increasingly rare steam-powered machines more impressive than their modern diesel counterparts.
The Empress, specifically, is a marvel of restorative engineering. Retired from passenger service in 1960, it stayed off the rails until its refurbishment in 2001, according to its Wikipedia page. The antique was then parked at Canadian Pacific’s headquarters in Calgary, Alberta in 2012, where it remained until this year’s continental tour.
“I just like trains, personally,” Rinner said. “It’s a big deal for this train itself because it’s — like the Big Boy — it’s restored, it’s very old. They found one that was possible to (restore), and they finally restored it … there’s just something about a steam train that, you’ve just got to love it.”
The vehicle’s rich history was not lost on any of the spectators eagerly awaiting its arrival.
Mike Squires made the drive up to Washington from St. Louis with CP 2816’s legacy in mind. Beyond engines themselves falling out of use and maintainability, he said the legal processes and insurance liability required to put an old steamer on a class I freight line made a sight like Thursday’s exceptionally uncommon.
“This one maybe ran 10, 15 years ago last time,” he said. “There’s never a guarantee that it’s going to run the next day. So you make the time, best you can, to come and see it.”
After hours of anticipation, the locomotive crossed the Crooked Creek and Highway 1 overpasses into town at last, a few minutes after 4 p.m. Engineers smiled and waved at the modest crowds as they passed by at speed, greeted by the few cheers not drowned out by the rattling wheels and blowing whistle.
No more than three minutes after it came around the bend, the steam engine was gone, a dot on the horizon chugging east toward Ainsworth on its way to Davenport, the tour’s last stop of the day. As the moment passed, the assembled enthusiasts took one last glimpse at it in the distance, then climbed back into their cars, whether to travel home or race the train to the next photo opportunity.
A representative from the railroad said they were thrilled by the excitement seen throughout the multi-month tour. The company said it was the first time a steam engine had ever traversed Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in a single trip, enabled by the merger which created the first single-line railway spanning those countries.
“This special cross-continental journey of the 2816 steam locomotive serves as a reminder of our past and a celebration of our future,” said CPKC Communications Director Lesli Tomlin in an email. “It has really been an extraordinary experience for all involved to see communities come together to see and celebrate this incredible piece of railroad history!”
Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com
