Dear Pilot,
I suppose restoration is never really complete if you count maintenance, but at that point, you’ve got the boulder to the top of the hill and now you’re just rolling it over every so often so it doesn’t grow moss. Which is to say, I think your caretakers will have better luck getting your train back to full glory than Sisyphus did getting up his hill.
And I should think they’d be quite motivated, seeing how successful Green Hornet’s restoration has been. It was even in the paper! My guides cut it out to read to me. A man wrote into the Action Line column to say he liked old trains and streetcars and wanted to know where he could see some. The newspaper replied and told him to go out to see your museum (once you are open again of course). They even mentioned Green Hornet and IT 415 by name, as well as a streetcar called the Red Rocket? I don’t think you’ve mentioned them yet. With a name like that, I think I’d remember!
They went on to list some more places who are preserving engines like us too. Railway preservation is really taking off, it seems. The MSI was mentioned, but there’s also a place out in Elgin called the Relic Railway too. They specialize in collecting trolleys, the way your museum started with electrics. The newspaper also recommended the Chicago Historical Society who apparently have the other Pioneer, the one me and 999 met at the Chicago Railroad Fair. I’m glad to learn he’s being kept nicely, though my guides say his tender was misplaced at some point. I suppose he doesn’t need it anymore, haha.
999 would like to point out that being a movie engine and being a show engine are very different things. (She’s right, although I think she is just making the point because she is offended at the notion that she doesn’t need her tender just because she doesn’t need coal. I suppose that was an unsympathetic thing to say). I’m not sure how she knows exactly, since she hasn’t been in a movie as far as I can recall, but she has been to far more fairs than I have.
Being a show engine is, for the most part, a lot of standing still and being admired. It’s actually not that different from being a museum engine at all, which is part of why she and I were so lucky to end up here together. People come to inspect you and many of them even want to talk, so you have to have good manners and know your history very well. Thinking about it now, I suppose she and I are also lucky in that we had been made to do this our whole service lives. Every time we did something notable or attended an event, we’d know to remember it because we might be asked about it later.
I do think the Wheels A-Rolling pageant was very similar to being a movie engine. Although to 999’s credit, I actually think it was a little harder! Engines – even show engines – aren’t exactly used to performing for an audience as part of a large production in that way. When you think about it though, it’s basically the same as things we do in our regular service lives. You have to move on cue across the stage and stop on your mark, which isn’t that different to arriving and departing at a station. There were fewer stunts in the pageant than there were in the movie, but in the movie, if I didn’t get it right, we could try again. In front of a live audience, you have to try very hard not to mess up because you only get one chance each show.
That aspect of it had me a little nervous the first few times we did the show, but once I had my part down, I realized it wasn’t asking much. My role was to show how sleek and smooth streamliners were so all I had to do was glide down the track out from the right wing of the stage to my mark the left.
I remember 999’s part came earlier than mine though and she always looked so amazing charging over from stage left. She was reenacting her speed record run, so she had to go much faster than I did. She nailed the run every time though. Watching her, you’d get the impression that she treated every day on the Empire State Express as that kind of performance so she was right at home on a stage.
The Chicago Worlds Fair also had a pageant like that that 999 performed in. I wish I could have seen that, but I was only at the fair a few days before I was off on my exhibition tour and then put in service.
Over time, my event attendance waned, but hers was quite steady. First Streamlined Electric-Diesel Passenger Train in Revenue Service is a… qualified distinction that lost some of its note over time. First Engine to Go 100 Miles Per Hour? That’ll always draw a crowd. 999 says her schedule was less demanding as passenger service engines became more advanced so she had more value to her railroad as an exhibition piece in her later service years. Even when she was meant to be retired finally, they sent her on another exhibition tour so everyone could get a last look before they sent her to her eventual home… which they had not yet determined and were touring to stir up interest. But it worked, didn’t it?
And so it is that now we’re all enjoying our well-earned winter retirement while the inside of our museum is busier than ever. All the usual Christmas festivities are happening, the trees, visitors coming to show off their countries’ holiday customs, local students coming to sing. It’s quite serene out here on the lawn comparatively.
All of us here on the east lawn hope you and yours are resting up just as much for your coming new year.
Your friend,
Pioneer