I recently found myself standing in the biting cold in the middle of nowhere; waiting for a train I had no intention of riding. I had risen early and drove far to watch the replica of a train that was used in 1869 drive a half-mile and blow steam. Dry air sapped the moisture from my lips and I wondered how cold it had to get for my eyeballs to freeze, but I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the puffs of steam in the distance.
Every year the Golden Spike National Historic Site holds the Steam Festival. The Golden Spike National Historic Site is located where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met and completed the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Calling the event the Steam Festival is a bit of misnomer, because while the event is big on steam, it is sparse on festivities. Even without festivities, the event is totally worth it.
I am the classic man-child. I have a professional job and provide for my family, but come the weekend my inner child slips the bonds of responsibility and makes a direct line for comic movies, model rockets, Legos, and trains. Look, I fully own each of my guilty pleasures, and they each have their own allure, but I’m not sure what it is about trains that pulls me in. Before the holidays, I bought a small model of the Durango & Silverton locomotive and cars. I put the track together on a table in my basement and just watched the little black engine go in circles for longer than I’m proud to say. I’m not sure if it is the mesmerizing sound of the train clickety-clacking around the rails, the feeling of certainty in an uncertain world that comes with a defined track, or just the beauty of design and engineering that goes into a locomotive, but I am drawn to trains like a jock to balls.
This brings me to standing in the frigid winter wind, blowing my own steam, and scanning the snow covered desolation for the first glimpse of the Union Pacific train named Jupiter. As the assigned hour of the train’s arrival approached, a crowd actually formed around the tracks. As the train began its approach the park rangers had to remind the crowd that was angling, straining, and jockeying for position that the train would squish you if you were actually on the tracks or scald you with steam if you stood to close. Aren’t trains awesome?
This year the star of the Steam Festival was the replica of the Union Pacific wood burning locomotive, Jupiter. The train is, for lack of a better adjective, beautiful. The locomotive’s mat black boiler is accented with shiny brass piping and rides on bright red wheels. At its back sits the red and blue cab in which a very happy engineer stands pulling levers and turning knobs. I knew true jealousy as I watched this master of 19th century technology waive to the crowd in his period appropriate engineer costume. In the crisp cold morning air the steam billowed from the front of the ornate train in large white clouds of superheated water vapor that seemed to constantly envelope the slow moving train as it passed through the crowd. I happily snapped photos as the train made a couple of ceremonial passes through the on lookers. It eventually stopped and ladders were erected so the crowd of cold weather masochists and train enthusiast could get up close and personal with Jupiter.
After the initial crowd finally succumbed to the weather, I took full advantage of the opportunity to climb onto the train and into the cab. In an age where simple design is often touted as good design, the complexity of craftsman wrought levers, knobs, gages, doors, and pipes that filled the cab are a sight to be seen. Every day I work with technology that is more advanced than what used to put man on the moon, but I couldn’t even begin to figure out how to actually make the engine go, which would have been important if I was to fulfill my fantasy of the greatest train heist of all time.
Eventually, I had to relinquish my place in the cab to a small group of millennials that felt that paying the entrance fee gave them the right to stand in the cab, too. I knew it was time to go, I had taken photos from every imaginable angle and exhaustively interrogated the engineer with questions like, “how much wood does it take to fuel the train?” (30 miles per cord) and “How did you get this job?” (I’m not going to tell you what he said, because I don’t want competition.). To commemorate my first Steam Festival I considered getting a plastic replica of the golden spike that was used to mark the unification of the railroads or the book “Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad.” I went with the book. I always go with the book.
Anyone finding himself or herself in Northern Utah in late December should consider making the pilgrimage to Promontory Summit. You get a little bit of history and can feed the inner child. Also, if you do go, I’m told the colder the better. So here's hoping for subzero next year.
Event Photos: http://www.peakedinterestmedia.com/photos/
Where: Golden Spike National Historic Site ($5 Fee Per Car In Winter)
Directions: Northbound on I-15 from Salt Lake City – Take Exit #365, turn west on Highway 13 to Highway 83. Follow signs to Golden Spike.
Website: http://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm
Book: Empire Express – Building the First Transcontinental Railroad, David Haward Bain