Dear Pioneer,
Have I said recently how much the yard looks forward to your letters? Of course it goes without saying that I always do, but it only occurred to me that everyone else loves getting them just as much when our letter-writer brought the last one out to us and seemed excited that there were two whole pages to read. My train have been keen on your longer letters recently (I think they’re hoping for another submarine story) but after the line about being reupholstered it took about a minute before everyone was quiet enough to continue listening, haha. Once they did though, I think they enjoyed it as much as any submarine story.
When you talk about your history, I feel like I’m there. Is that strange? Venus says that’s the mark of a skilled storyteller. Vesta said it was the good fortune of a famous engine to have stories worth telling. Personally, I think you could probably make a day in the yard sound interesting, but then again Mate always said I was too easily impressed. But can I help it if it’s easy to imagine seeing you fly over the rails in the snow? Your passengers and all the people in the towns you passed must have thought you were the grandest thing running! And being so close as to catch a greeting from an already-preserved engine feels… Well, it feels a bit like finding out that the Pioneer Zephyr– who lives in the city nearby– wants to be pen pals. Fortunate indeed!
Having two last runs isn’t dissimilar to what happened to us on the C&S in 1967, oddly enough. Maybe it’s an unofficial Zephyr tradition? They didn’t mean to give us two, but when we were retired in October, the railroad realized they didn’t have enough engines for all their trains and we were called back up into service for a few more months pulling drag freight. I wish our second retirement run was as grand as yours, but by the time we were headed up to McCook, we were all just tired. None of us wanted to quit, like you said, but being re-geared to haul miles-long freight trains was not what we’d been built for. In a way, a rest sounded nice regardless of what came next.
Usually this is where I would say that March is still considered part of our slow season and we’re waiting for the weather to get better before anything of note happens here, but last month something very interesting happened! The news wanted to do a special feature on local attractions, so they came to our museum to talk to the staff and volunteers about their work on one of the private cars, Ely.
Ely is very special, so I get why they wanted to do a feature on him. He’s a private railcar built during the 1890s for special guests of the railroad to travel in comfort. The camera crews from the television studio came out and took some film of his beautiful Gilded Age exterior; red and gold and very intricate. Not very much like streamliner, but lovely all the same. Apparently he took very well to the attention! You’d never know he was built before television was even invented with how he preened for the camera.
The staff here were very excited about the news program. Not only is being featured on the television good for Ely and his restoration, but it’s good advertising for the museum too! A few years ago we did spots on the radio telling people about coming out to visit us. The folks here say the TV is like that but even better because people can see what we have to offer with their own eyes. It’s no Silver Streak, but still very Burlington!
But it’s not all lazing about for the film crews around here. Illinois Terminal 101 is starting her restoration soon, and I’ll be getting ready for some test runs myself! It’s looking to be quite the busy season ahead of us. I hope your spring season is looking just as eventful.
Your friend,
Pilot