(The following report from the Arizona Daily Sun appeared at KVOA.com on June 29.)
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The old Baldwin locomotive sits on a section of display track downtown next to the historic train depot on East Route 66.
As an orange and yellow BNSF Railway engine speeds behind it on active track, the older engine is motionless, frozen in a time when it hauled cut timber out of local forests.
This is No. 25, nicknamed Old Two Spot, a beloved feature of the landscape of Flagstaff for more than 90 years.
A few blocks away, Malcolm Mackey sat in his home office.
Mackey spearheaded the effort to save Old Two Spot, which was built in Pennsylvania in 1911 and bought by Greenlaw Lumber Company to work in the ponderosa pine forests of Flagstaff.
“It was kind of the town mascot because it had a whistle that was recognizable,” said Mackey, 80, who still lives in the home where he was born. “The old-time people who are my age or older had a fondness for that old steam engine. It was bought new and brought here. Town drunks turned out for a big celebration, with the bar right across the street.”
Mackey doesn’t take solo credit for saving the old engine.
He said he was one of a group of concerned citizens who each put up $10,000 to buy Old Two Spot from Stone Forest Industries for about $45,000. “I’ve maintained a very low profile,” he said. “I may be a colorful character, but only with the redneck coffee group.”
Stone Forest was the last lumber company to operate in Flagstaff and closed its doors in 1993. The engine was retired on company property in 1966.
“Stone Forest was very unhappy with the city of Flagstaff for its support of the spotted owl; they would not sell to us,” he said. “Through the backdoor, we bought Two Spot and got it moved downtown. I was directly involved financially and physically.”
The locomotive has sat downtown since June 1999, when it was dedicated to “all those who worked in the Flagstaff timber industry over the last 110 years.”
Surrounded by train memorabilia in his office, Mackey is dressed in his standard uniform _ tan pants and short-sleeve shirt (yellow pencils in pocket), safari-style hat (complete with grease stains) and scuffed leather work boots.
His passion for trains began early, at around age 8.
The Pioneer Museum often carries copies of Mackey’s short book on the history of Old Two Spot, as well as several copies of his self-published 2005 book, “Northern Arizona 1880 – 2004,” which is subtitled, “scenes and stories about bridges, tunnels, dams and saw mills in and around Flagstaff and a few almost-forgotten legends and lies.”
“He is Mr. Train here in town,” said Joe Meehan, curator at the Flagstaff Pioneer Museum. “If you want to know anything about the logging railroad, that’s the man to go to.”
After researching events that happened during his lifetime, Mackey sometimes gives talks about them, complete with slides.
Mackey, whose father A.J. Mackey was the third dentist in town, worked for the railroad as a mechanic’s helper after World War II. After graduating from NAU in industrial arts education, he taught evening welding and metal machining classes at the university.
In 1956, he started his own excavating business, but his interest in trains remained constant. His wife of more than 53 years, Martha, who died in 2001, also liked trains.
“We met when we started riding the school bus together in kindergarten,” he said. “She was very supportive of my train interest. I am so fortunate to have had her.”
The couple has two children, daughter Anna, who lives in Virginia, and son Charles, who lives in Cottonwood.
Martha was behind him when he created a private 16-inch gauge railway system in 1982 on their property in Camp Verde.
“I spent four years laying the track,” Mackey said. “I restored the engines from junk. They were amusement park engines. I built all the rolling stock and put up the buildings.”
It’s too hot now to ride his trains, but he is working on another book.
“The thing about preserving history is we’ve got so many pilgrims who’ve come into Flagstaff in the past few years who don’t even know we had sawmills here,” Mackey said. “Logging for wood products _ that’s what helped establish Flagstaff.”
As for preserving the sound of train horns in Flagstaff, Mackey said he sees _ and hears _ both sides.
“I’m a little prejudiced toward the railroad,” he said. “But with the number of trains going through town having increased so much, when the wind blows a certain way you can really hear it up here.”