Full steam ahead: Heber Railroad raising funds for restoration

HEBER — A short distance out of Vivian Park, the train hits the steepest grade it will face on the trip. The locomotive will need steam — lots of steam, but engineer Bill Schultz and engineer Mike McCoy are ready.

Schultz opens the throttle to send more water to the boiler. Keeping an eye on the pressure gauge, McCoy begins shoveling coal. He grabs a shovelful, steps on a lever to open the heavy doors to the furnace and tosses the coal inside. He sets up a fast rhythm. Shovel, step, toss. Shovel, step, toss. Shovel, step, toss.

As the doors open, the flames in the belly of the engine evoke all kinds of images: fiery furnace, jaws of Hell, roaring dragon. Heat pops out in five-second blasts as they open and close.

The train responds so smoothly, the majority of the passengers probably don't even realize it is going uphill. Schultz and McCoy know and can feel the exact moment it hits more level terrain. From here on in to Heber, the fire will still need constant tending, but the pace will be less frenetic.

But this little stretch embodies one of the things McCoy loves best about the steam locomotive. "It's a living, breathing thing."

McCoy loves it so much he comes down from Nampa, Idaho, once a month or so, just for the joy of the hot, sweaty, dirty job.

Schultz feels the same way. He drives TRAX trains for a living and comes up one or two days a week to volunteer as an engineer.

Words describing what it's like to run the train come easy: incredible, amazing, riot, blast. "I just love it," says Schultz. "Railroading gets in your blood — and there's no transfusion in the world that will get rid of it."

He's been doing this for 27 years. His dad worked here. His son now serves as a conductor on the train.

McCoy's only been at it for six years. "I always had an interest but never an opportunity," he says. "When an opportunity came, I jumped at it." He loves being a fireman, but the goal, of course, is to become an engineer. Everyone starts out as a fireman, he explains. You have to pay those dues for at least three to five years. You have to learn what it takes to make a steam engine run: how much water, how much fire, how much pressure, how much steam, how to keep them all in balance.

The engineer, on the other hand, controls the speed; must know every dip, grade, bend and stretch in the track; learns the language of the whistle. "It's a job that uses all your senses," says Schultz. The sights, the sounds, the feel are all important.