(The following story by Eric Berger appeared on the Boonville Daily News website on October 8, 2010.)
BOONVILLE, Missouri — Mike Duncan said he thinks steam engine trains have got personality.
“The things are just huge and have got so many different parts working,”said Duncan, the owner of River Eagle Hobbies in Boonville. “The diesel trains, they just roll by kind of like a car would.”
On Monday, the Union Pacific Challenger No. 3985 powered through Boonville and Blackwater on its way from Kansas City to Jefferson City.
American Locomotive Company built the train in 1943, and it is the oldest such train still in operation, according to the Union Pacific website.
A document on the website describes the personality Duncan is referring to.
“When watching the approaching locomotive go through a curve, you can see the boiler swing out left or right independently of the lower half of the engine, as the rear half of the locomotive remains in a straight direction until its wheels and frame are halfway through the curve,” the document states.
Duncan had never seen the train before, and he said it hasn’t come around the mid-Missouri area in 20 or 30 years.
Sedalia’s sesquicentennial celebration is the occasion for the train’s voyage through Missouri, said Mark Davis, Union Pacific spokesman.
“Sedalia itself, for the state of Missouri, historically, is a very big railroad town,” Davis said. “It had a very large rail yard and repair complex.”
The company tries to schedule a few different events for the train each year. Earlier this year, the train passed through cities in Colorado and Oregon.