“Let’s go see the model trains at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry,” my husband insisted when the boys were little. We piled them in the station wagon and drove to Chicago. The boys enjoyed looking at the display of 1,400 feet of track and watching the 20 model trains run from one miniature scene to another.
For Christmas he decided the boys would like a train set. He began building a permanent layout. The next year he gave each son a new train car. Their layout would never compete with the museum’s, but they had fun until time and other interests called. When we moved, we took apart the layout and put the set in storage.
Hubby’s fascination returned everytime I found a set at a yard sale. Once we found four new model train sets at an estate sale. We bought two: the John Deere set and the old timey set. I returned later that day and bought one featuring national food companies and a sleek, hyper modern train. Hubby examined the sets with as much relish as his grandsons have each new Lego set. Eventually I sold them to make room for future discoveries.
I know he likes trains, so what did I think he would say when I read that Big Boy, the largest train ever made in the USA, was touring nearby?
“Oh we missed Big Boy being in Little Rock and Camden,” I said, putting down my cell phone late that afternoon. I had just seen a news release of it leaving a nearby spot.
“Where will it be next?” he asked.
“It won’t be stopping again. It’s heading to Texarkana for the night. We missed it,” I said.
“Let’s go see it in Texarkana!!” He stood up ready to run and catch the train. “We can do it. We can go to Texarkana and see it.”
I demurred. I did not relish the idea of hours of driving in hopes of finding Big Boy on some side rail.
“I’m going to go!” he insisted.
“Have a nice time.”
He grabbed the keys, “Wait, I need to get the camera. Is it charged?”
It was. Tucking the camera under his arm, he left with a big smile on his face. He was going to see one of the biggest train engines ever built.
Hours later he returned all excited, “I parked in exactly the right place. I could not have gotten any closer. I asked where to find the train and found others walking across the tracks to see it.”
They found the train crew working on wheels as tall as themselves. “It has four smaller wheels, eight big ones and four more small ones,” he enthused. He showed me pictures of the visitors and workers dwarfed by Big Boy. If the train were to stand on end it would rise 13 stories high. (Its hinged frame allows it to do curves.)
Two tankers arrived to refuel Big Boy. Hubby showed me pictures of the hose filling the 6,500 gallon fuel tank the engine hauls. The train burns around 25 gallons of oil per mile. The train’s huge black gas tank diminished the men and the visitors.
He showed me pictures of everyone but himself posing with the train. “The crew sleeps in the cars Big Boy pulls,” he showed me pictures of the yellow cars.
Yep! It was a big-un. He saw it. He got closer than he would have watching it roll through some train crossing. He talked with the crew. He came home with a set of pictures to pull out and admire even if he could not put the train on a track and make it run in circles in a layout.
Joan Hershberger, a former News Time writer, retired to listen to Hubby’s train stories. She can b reached at joanh864@gmail.com