A REAL LOCO-MOTIVE FORCE
Published in the Nov 29, 2025 issue.
“If you want to start nailing, go ahead.”
I grabbed a framing hammer and a handful of #10 nails and peered down the side of the boxcar. It looked long, intimidating and alluring.
The oak, tongue-and-groove paneling was tacked in place. But to install the new siding so it was solid and historically accurate meant the oak had to be nailed in. The bottom of each four-inch panel took three nails in a diagonal line. There were roughly 100 boards. Three hundred nails. More than 1,000 hammer strikes. It took a while. So did pounding in the row of nails running across the middle of the car. About head high. That row only took two nails per panel but required standing on a ladder to wield the hammer.
Me and two other volunteers worked methodically to nail the oak siding onto the solid, ancient oak skeleton of the original Carson Colorado boxcar from the late 1880s being restored and rebuilt in the train barn at the Eastern California Museum.
“You can grab that power grinder and smooth out a spot about the size of a dime on the boiler in the middle of each square.”
A week later, I found myself sizing up the grid chalked on the outside of the 1909 Baldwin steam locomotive’s boiler. There were close to two dozen spots that needed a grind. Locomotive #9 was parked in the Laws Railroad Museum train barn. (*Why we have two train barns 60 miles apart is a mystery of historic proportions) I took the power grinder in hand, got my feet situated, and made sparks fly.
I ground off decades of grit on dozens of spots on the boiler so a digital, ultrasound thickness gauge could measure the thickness of the boiler’s steel.
That is a short summary of my recent four straight days of what I tell people is “train work.”
When they ask why I volunteer to work on the valley’s historic trains, I say, “because it’s fun.” That’s the easy answer. There is too much going on to explain more. Plus, I’m not exactly sure why I am attracted to work that is both intricate and massive, gritty and dirty, simple and complex.
I came to train work fairly recently and have only been banging away on that vintage iron for about a decade. Jumping into what can be hard, physical, manual labor at my age might make some conclude that I’m trying to relive my youth, trying to prove that age hasn’t slowed me down too much.
There’s some truth to that.
High school summers were spent working with plumbers, carpenters and concrete crews. I worked in “the trades” just enough to have some basic knowledge that’s proven useful in the barns.
My most physically demanding work experience came during college over six summers (I took my time getting educated) and Christmas breaks. I worked as a roughneck on drilling rigs in Western Colorado and Wyoming’s Red Desert. I hired on as a floor hand, working tongs in Worm’s Corner and throwing chain. They were big rigs. Triples in the lingo. We were drilling 7,000-9,000-foot holes for natural gas. Dangerous work.
Mistakes could be painful. I learned how to lift heavy things, how to swing a sledgehammer (“hit it like you live — hard and fast”), and where to put my feet and hands at all times to minimize “mistakes.”
But it’s been decades since I was a cocky young man who could work a 16-hour double without blinking. I can still use tools and work. Just not as fast or for as long. In the train barns, I defer to the experts, the experienced steam locomotive mechanics and engineers who volunteer their time and talent. I hand them tools, wrench nuts and bolts, hit things with hammers, and do whatever I can to help.
“You just do grunt work or chase tools and hang out? You think that’s fun?”
Sometimes I just say, “yep.”
Sometimes I say more.
Ever since leaving the physical world of drilling rigs and concrete behind me I have retreated into my head. I’ve been absorbed in a world of words, theories, ideas, proposals, plans, budgets and bullshit. It’s been great. Wouldn’t trade it for the world. It’s also been ephemeral. Ideas and words come and go, shift and move and take different shapes over time. Ideas float in and out of my over-active mind, often without taking concrete form.
At least those words filled a physical space on pages of paper or newsprint. But in our digital age, there might not even be much more tangible evidence of my current “work.” (Thank you, Lunch for sticking with ink and paper.)
Coming out of that nebulous world, there is a definite attraction to hitting a nail with a hammer. The impact makes the hammer vibrate, the oak squeak, wrist and arm muscles clinch and release. It’s a living act.
The result is tangible. It’s solid. You can touch it. You can see a diagonal line of shining steel nail heads nestled in the wood.
There is also no denying the heft of a 36-inch pipe wrench when picking it up and handing it off. Banging away with a sledgehammer is damn near therapeutic. The sound of steel on steel declares there is no theory, no guesswork, just reality.
The same applies to powering away more than a century of grit to reveal shining dots of steel on a 116-year-old locomotive boiler. Some places take longer to strip down. Some go quickly. None are the same. But there they are. Proof of a steady hand, a good eye.
Tired, sore muscles are a reward in themselves, a reminder of what bones, blood and muscles are designed to do.
In a delightful irony, the satisfaction of doing those manual jobs eventually leads to humility. The greatest lesson.
In both cases, my recent train work will never be seen. The boxcar’s nails will be painted over, hiding the meticulous patterns. The locomotive’s outer metal skin will eventually cover the boiler and the shiny spots of steel. No one will know how much work and effort went into those tasks. Except me and the rest of the train barn crews.
We know. And that’s good enough.
Jon Klusmire of Bishop is more than impressed with the skill, ingenuity and wisdom of the volunteer train crews, who are miracle workers and always fun to watch.
