On the way into Kemmerer to greet the Big Boy steam engine last week, I was amazed at the number of people lined up along U.S. 30 with cameras (phones) in hand all wanting their own photo of the historic piece of transportation history.

By the time I reached Fossil Butte, traffic was starting to become congested as I chose my front-page photo on the big curved bridge near the butte. Getting back into traffic was a task as I headed into Kemmerer to hop a ride on Big Boy to Granger.

Again, in Kemmerer I was surprised to see so many people show up to greet the train. As I came into the Kemmerer Triangle, people were walking in from all parts of town. I imagined that’s how it might have been way back in the 40s when that same steam engine may have rolled into town,

On the train, I was amazed at how the equipment of decades past still functioned, (with a little help from a computer connected to a more modern engine a few car spaces back — used for braking purposes.)

As we traveled, I loved to hear the sound of the train whistle on our southbound journey. I’ll borrow the words of UP Heritage Equipment Manager Ed Dickens. In an interview conducted on board the train as we traveled, “And you can feel the locomotive. You can feel that whistle thundering in your chest. You can feel the counterweight. Just the movement of the locomotive, surging and producing its power. This is the way it was done before diesel electric technology replaced the steam locomotive in 1959.”

What a wonderful opportunity to re-live our nation’s history.