ENGINE, ENGINE #253

BY WILLI MILLER
PHOTOS BY ED DRONDOSKI

Sitting quietly yet majestically on a rail siding in the north end of Fort Pierce is Engine No. 253, one of the dwindling numbers remaining of the 75,000 steam locomotives built by the American Locomotive Company. Of that number, 275 belonged to Florida East Coast Railway (FEC), and No. 253 is one of only six left. She’s an 0-8-0, meaning there are no wheels in the front, eight in the middle and none in the back. And, yes, locomotives are referred to as “she.”

Engine No. 253, built in 1924, was headed for a Texas scrap yard when train aficionados Steve Spreckelmeier and Bob Bates put together a deal to buy the locomotive and transport her to a new home in Florida. Spreckelmeier is now president and general manager of Steam Locomotive Association 253 Corp., and Bates is on the board of directors of the wholly volunteer restoration organization.

For the most part, the project depends on the generosity of like-minded train lovers. Getting No. 253 to Florida was the first major expense — almost $50,000. Moving a steam locomotive is like moving the Titanic, Spreckelmeier says. “You don’t buy it at Wal-Mart and take it home in a shopping bag.” The 70-foot-long locomotive weighs well over 100 tons and can pull a 5,100-ton train at 25 mph. Too heavy to be transported on highways, No. 253 had to be loaded on a flatcar and hauled by train.

The locomotive’s early years in Florida were spent in Miami and Hialeah. By the time she was moved to Fort Pierce in June of this year, the group’s collection had grown to 14 cars. It was the impending sale of FEC that forced the association to find a new home. John Rude, the group’s vice president, approached Jon Ward, director of the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency.

Ward appreciates the connection between Fort Pierce and railroads. “We are at a unique point in our history with trains,” he says. “Fort Pierce was the dividing point between the northern and southern portions of Flagler’s early FEC railroad operations. This was as far as you could get from Jacksonville, coming south, or Key West, going north, without recoaling and rewatering the old steam engines and changing crews. Many Fort Pierce families were made up from those crews.”

Coincidentally, he says, his agency had purchased a factory building on five acres — with its own railroad siding — in the port area of Fort Pierce. With the Police Athletic League using part of the building, the remainder was leased to the locomotive association in 2007.

“Fort Pierce has to continue to develop assets that are unique to the city, to attract the kinds of cultural tourists that many studies have confirmed stay longer and spend more money locally than general travelers,” Ward says. “(This) collection could certainly provide the basis for a substantial rail museum that should attract that sort of high-grade tourist. Combined with the city’s other assets, the steam group could certainly play an important role in the city’s emerging image as a cultural center.”

Long-range plans include a working two-track restoration facility where No. 253 will be protected from the elements yet available for short excursions with passengers, says Betty Jean Andrianoff, volunteer coordinator and the local go-to person for the organization. Dinner rides are on the menu after the engine passes her boiler test, possibly by the end of the year.

Andrianoff had been on a train only once in her life, but it made such an impression that when she heard about No. 253’s coming to Fort Pierce, she knew she had to be part of it. Completion of the project is expected to take from three to five years, she says. When it’s finished it will include a railroad museum, picnic grounds, extended tracks, an engine house and additional enhancements that will attract railroad and steam engine buffs to Fort Pierce from all over the world.

With education a main goal, a rail camp for children is planned as well as a place for adults to learn to work on real railroad cars. “It’s basically a dying art,” Spreckelmeier says. “It’s going to be lost forever if we don’t carry it on.”

Andrianoff’s roster of volunteers and contributing members numbers almost 150 and is growing. Members range in participation levels from junior members at $18 annual dues to life members, one of whom recently contributed a dining car. Others have donated railroad artifacts to the museum: lanterns, signage, oilers’ cans, a big brass engine bell and even a potbellied stove.

One of the tour guides is a Sebastian resident who totally embraces the role of old-time trainman, right down to his bushy mustache and gold pocket watch. Caboose Mikey (Mike Starck) is so enamored of trains that he keeps one in his backyard. “I love to tell the stories and spin the yarns,” he says. “It just seems to me that everybody likes to be taken back to times before us and glimpse the past.”

There’s always room for more help on a project of this magnitude. “We’re actively looking for monetary donations and association members to work with us,” Andrianoff says, “from the very skilled to the unskilled.” Restoring a vintage train takes a lot of muscle and a lot of money, but anyone who remembers the story of the little engine that could will understand that just about anything is possible when people are determined to make something happen. All aboard!