July 12, 2000
Train restoration still on track
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
What if you had a dream job, a place you went every day that was more like play than work.
This summer, five guys over behind the old Brown Lumber warehouse on Lake Street are having the time of their lives as they restore an old steam engine back into running condition. It may be a dirty job, it may be tedious at times, but it is like putting together a big puzzle that will make an elegant piece of machinery from another time come alive.
"Every day is something different," said Mitch Saylon, a retired diesel mechanic from the Navy who worked as a mechanic on the Grand Traverse Dinner Train. "I got interested in railroads because they had the big diesel trains. I never dreamed I would be working on this."
Saylon was recruited over to steam engines by the project's chief engineer officer, Tom Doyle. The two became friends last year because of their mutual interest in and work on trains, each helping the other out occasionally. Doyle, however, has his loyalties firmly planted in steam technology and has worked on railroads since childhood.
"In my opinion, railroads are the best you can do for yourself," said Doyle, who moved to Traverse City recently for the duration of the estimated 18-month project. "It may be hard work but it keeps you on your toes."
Doyle, a native of Milwaukee, Wis., has been around steam engine restoration since he was three years old, sort of growing up into the field. He began working full-time in restoration when he was in high school and put himself through college with this work. He now travels around the country to complete restorations.
Doyle first came to Traverse City in 1996 to see if this engine was worth restoration efforts. He hooked up with city resident Bob Carr who had found the engine near Yale University some years back and couldn't bear to see the old engine rot. Carr finally arranged for financing to restore it and a place to work on it just a short distance from where it hunkered on tracks between the Boardman Lake and Oryana Food Co-Operative.
After Doyle gave the engine a thumbs up, the restoration project got rolling last spring - literally. Before they could move the engine to its current location and work on it, Carr and Doyle faced one small snag: there were not any railroad tracks behind the old Brown Lumber warehouse where they wanted to park it. No problem! They laid the track themselves last May on an abandoned but active railroad right-of-way and had the engine pushed north a few hundred feet.
The engine is actually owned by Zerr's Historical Steam Train based in Independence, Missouri, one of several restoration companies nationwide dedicated to preserving historical train equipment. When the restoration is complete, Carr plans for the engine to stay in the area and drive a tourist train, becoming one of 150 tourist trains in the country powered by steam. He sees it as another unique feature that Traverse City could offer to both its residents and tourists.
"There are not many passenger steam engines left and this design was very popular, there is one in the Smithsonian," said Carr, who has been dedicated to saving railroad tracks and equipment since the mid 1980s. "When Tom is done with it, this engine will be certified to go anywhere in the United States. But my vision is to keep it local."
Carr has 15 railroad cars sprinkled around town, one a sleeping car built in 1898 that he calls fancier than any house in town. (His boxcar located in front of the steam engine being worked on is the oldest metal boxcar in the state and serves as the crew's office.)
By next year, he hopes to combine the elegantly restored steam engine, which he declares has the prettiest whistle he has ever heard, with some opulent passenger cars restored to their finest and take people on grand tours of the Grand Traverse region.
"This train would help other railroads and other building projects, it would even help Building 50," Carr said. "When you preserve these things and do it right, all of a sudden storefronts get preserved and other things get preserved."