Nebraska Stories #606, - Restoring the big boy & more

Coming up on Nebraska Stories, restoring the world's largest steam locomotive, the glory days of Sunday baseball, finding redemption through art, playing games to save lives, and life as a 19th Century kid. ♪ MUSIC ♪ Union Pacific steam locomotive Big Boy is undergoing a complete restoration. Hop aboard to learn about this massive undertaking. NARRATOR: They've driven hundreds of miles to see it. LARRY CHRISTIE: It's a historic moment, it truly is. NARRATOR: They'd been jostling for the best view at every convenient rail crossing of the Union Pacific mainline. CHRISTIE: I was the only one here five minutes ago. NARRATOR: They've been waiting for the Big Boy. Locomotive 4014 glided by, 14 massive wheels turning smoothly. The locomotive was not under its own power. It was sandwich between two modern diesel engines of the Union Pacific Railroad. It's a steam locomotive without the steam. CHRISTIE: One point two million pounds on that rail. 134 feet long, largest engine in the world. It's fantastic. NARRATOR: It's so long, 132 feet, it has a hinge in the middle to help it get through a curve. NICK VALDEZ: Many rail fans like me never thought that this would ever happen. And to see it coming back on its home turf where it hasn't been in over 50 years is just something really special to see. NARRATOR: Since 1962, this particular Big Boy stood still and silent on display at a California rail museum. Fans were ecstatic when Union Pacific announced it would renovate the engine at its shops in Cheyenne, Wyoming. ED DICKENS: It's a 4,000 class, it's legendary. And it's been the most frequently asked question for 20 plus years for the crew. When will the Union Pacific undertake the restoration and operation of a 4,000 Big Boy. NARRATOR: Making discreet inquiries to places where Big Boy locomotives are on display, the steam team found the perfect candidate for restoration at a rail museum in California. DICKENS: For many many months prior to the official announcement of this project, we would be traveling with the 844, and we all had the hand signals where we would go. We secretly knew what we were about to embark on. (train whistles) NARRATOR: There were plenty of unknowns on this journey, like how the hinged engine would deal with the turns, if the tracks would buckle under the weight, and whether the massive wheels would lock up. DICKENS: We're greasing all of the side rods. There's a hard grease that is the lubrication for that particular type of technology. Several of my staff didn't even know what a steam locomotive was. And they are learning that. The locomotive teaches you a lot. We haven't operated a Big Boy on the Union Pacific since 1959, so the infrastructure that was there back when they ran these, is gone. And the staff that worked on them, both operating and on the mechanical side, they're gone as well. (train whistles) NARRATOR: Hundreds lined the tracks when it arrived at the wild west era train depot in Cheyenne. There were hardcore rail enthusiasts, and families who just wanted their kids to see this behemoth from another era. JIM EHERBERGER: Talk about a PR stunt. This is a master of all PR stunts, I think. NARRATOR: Jim Eherberger was a staff photographer for the railroad. He remembers shooting the Big Boy doing what it was designed to do, hauling massive amounts of freight and coal. EHERBERGER: The exhaust was loud. The whistle blowing, and the ground actually vibrated a little bit. So it was a sight. It was a sight. NARRATOR: The Rockies have always been a long, steep haul for a freight train climbing between Utah and Wyoming. Before 1940, that demanded two locomotives. A small fleet of Big Boys put into service handled the job on their own. Especially important when rail traffic became a matter of national security. EHERBERGER: These locomotives were needed during World War II. On an eastward train they could come out with one Big Boy, so they didn't have to switch a train, that was the savings. NARRATOR: At the end of its journey back to Wyoming, the Big Boy was rolled into the steam team's workshop. It sits across the railyard from the Cheyenne passenger depot. Back in the day, rolling this giant in for repairs would have been routine. Now to accommodate the size of the machine and the scope of the project, UP even had to rebuild the shop before it could rebuild the locomotive. DICKENS: These pits and the configuration of these tracks here make it difficult to work on a steam locomotive. What we'll do is we will remove these and we'll fill in the areas in between, and that'll allow us to work on more than one locomotive at a time, and we can work on both sides of the locomotive without having to reposition the locomotive when we need to work on the other side. And getting to see the facility transition into a steam locomotive repair facility once again, that's been the exciting part. NARRATOR: Dickens felt the 4014 could be a good fixer-upper. The boiler appeared to be strong enough to be safely fired up again, converting it from coal to diesel fuel will take three to five years. They've started by peeling back a few layers of cast iron pieces and parts to get a closer look. DICKENS: When you consider the locomotive operated from 1941ish until 1959, it has a lot of life left in it. It also was operated for over a million two miles, so it does have a lot of wear, but the core components are in very good shape. NARRATOR: Getting the Big Boy back on the rails is clearly a popular decision, it's a risky one too. Union Pacific is betting millions of dollars that they will end up with a fully functional steam engine once the restoration is complete. EHERBERGER: I started taking pictures in 1953, and the last Big Boy, this one, last operated in 19-- (train horn blasts) 1959, and I watched 'em all. They're marvelous machines. NARRATOR: After riding in the engine for the last leg of the trip, Jim Eherberger thought the 4014 proved it's as tough as ever. EHERBERGER: I think it was built to last. If they take care of it, it was built to last. NARRATOR: Now it's up to the steam team to make it all work reliably, and safely. EHERBERGER: Barring some catastrophe or some other situation, this locomotive will run. With their glory days behind them, old ball players reminisce about playing in Nebraska's independent baseball league. Batter up! ♪ MUSIC ♪ ROGER POLLMAN: I didn't play for fun, I played to win. I was a sore loser. (laughs) LARRY BORNSCHLEGEL: Every small town, it seemed like, as I was growing up, had their own team. And they were competitive. These guys played ball and they played it seriously. LYNN CHELEWSKI: 'Cause it was huge in almost every little community you can imagine. Who now maybe don't have teams, but they did. BORNSCHLEGEL: The 30s, 40s, 50s, and most of the 60s were big in Nebraska baseball. POLLMAN: The whole area around here had neighborhoods, you know? Like we don't have anymore, and if you had a neighborhood, even if it wasn't a town, they're likely to have a baseball team. BOB STEINKAMP: Lone Elm, Kansas. There was one building and it sold gas and beer and the ballpark, ballfield was right south of that and it was called Lone Elm Kansas, nobody lived there. CHELEWSKI: They had a ballpark, they had a team. And you go by there now, it's almost like I just picture ghostly images. I've been by there, and you see a building, you'll see this elm, you don't see anything else. You don't see a ballpark, but you knew back in the day you could just hear the crowd cheering. (cheering) POLLMAN: I lived for baseball, I really did. It was my everything. I had, I think it was '52 or '53, '53 I think. I had the scout from Chicago White Sox, Hugh Alexander, come down scouted me. We played Liberty one Sunday. It was all Sunday games in them days 'cause nobody hardly had lights, you know. And as soon as the game was over, I hadn't even got off the field, there he was, talking to me. And he wanted me to go to Oklahoma and play in the minors down there, and my brother was in the army at that time in Korea and Dad wasn't feeling good and I wanted to go and Dad said if you go, we're gonna lose the farm. STEINKAMP: It's amazing how many of 'em actually did sign professional contracts. So many of them would then say I had a chance to go but I couldn't because I was the support of the farm and I had to stay home and work. Many, many situations like that. POLLMAN: It wasn't easy. I had that in my mind I thought, I'll run away from home and I'll go down there. Then I got thinking well, if I make it, I'll be okay. I can send some money home to Dad and help keep things going, but I thought if I don't make it, I probably better never ever come home again. CHELEWSKI: And that was their story for a lot of them. They had kids or a family or a wife and they thought, you know, we just can't afford to play professional baseball, but they had a long legacy semi-pro. (jazz piano) RON DOUGLAS: You had your church, and then your chicken dinner, and then baseball. There wasn't any other distraction. Baseball was pretty much it in the summertime. BORNSCHLEGEL: It was a social night for the whole community. DOUGLAS: They'd pack 'em in, I mean farmers would come from all over, not just the townspeople. STEINKAMP: There'd be cars parked all the way around the ballpark and they'd draw 3,000 people. BORNSCHLEGEL: It was a topic of conversation all the time. They took pride in it. Each town had their own team and they loved that team. They supported that team. CHELEWSKI: That was, I really enjoyed that. That was a great part of life, and I feel sorry for the people that didn't get to participate in it. There's nobody that shows up for the games and there's no rivalries, they're just playing baseball for the love of the game, and that's okay, but they don't get that other, the other stuff that we got. POLLMAN: To this day it bothers me. I wish I'd have went and not made it. I'd feel a lot better than the way I do now, because I never will know. That's the big thing, I'll never know. STEINKAMP: The pictures on the wall, the memorabilia that we show, we can identify with those old boys how important it truly is to keep it alive. ♪ MUSIC ♪ Before he found art, Fredy Rincon was a young man struggling to break free of gang life. FREDY RINCON: I've been trying to finish my name for like an hour, and haven't been able to. My last show, more people that I didn't know came, and this one, a lot more people that I knew came. Like a lot of my friends and, you know, people from our world, they all came out here. I used to spend a lot of time down here. We used to go into abandoned buildings, paint on walls like this, but it's changed a bit. I was born in Los Angeles on the east side and then I grew up there for a while. We moved around a lot, and then around the time I was 14 going on 15 we moved over here. The gang life's everywhere, it's part of the culture. You know, like they say you're Mexican, you're, being in a poverty-stricken area, you already kind of destined to go that way. At first, when I was young, I didn't want to be a gangster, you know, I don't want to get into that. I'll try graffiti. It starts out, you know, you think you're doing it for hip hop and the art, but in that environment it turns into you do what they tell you or you keep on your own way and deal with the consequences. And you know, at first, we were calm. We did our graffiti thing and there wasn't actually any taggers here other than, I think, a different crew. But then, what was it, when I was like 17, 18, our house got shot up. When they shot it up, the whole front of it had holes in it and my brother was sleeping in the living room on the other side of the window, so they hit it with like eight shots. From that day on, our whole mentality got more serious, you know? (gunshots pop) My major was graphic design. My first art professor, you know, he taught me. Was teaching me techniques, and I really enjoyed it. He saw that I had a will to keep learning and to actually study art, and he encouraged me. You know, he's like, you might have a future in it. You know, you should keep at it. And I did. Hey Alvin, you wanna pour water down your invention? You did it! That's good, that's smart. If I didn't have them, why would I work or why would I do any of this? You know, there'd be no point. It gave me a reason to actually start working. You know, painting, started changing my life. I've stuck to them like glue now, you know? So how's school? But before, you know, we'll go to parks, we'll hang out as a family. We'll talk, we'll have dinner, so we put them to bed around nine o'clock and by the time they're all in bed, then I can start painting. Lately it was hard and I knew I was falling behind. I'll come home and I'll be tired. Sometimes I'll be painting and my eyes will be closing. It's not rare I'll paint 'til one in the morning. This is the title piece for the show. The show's called The Cards You're Dealt, so meaning, you know, we're all dealt different cards, different situations. I've met people that I mean got dealt terrible cards, you know. Physically, mentally, I mean everything and still managed to make something with their lives. And there's people that are born with everything and throw it away. So, I admire people that can keep going. (people chatting) - But thanks for coming. OMAR HINAJOSA: I'm very proud, you know. It's completely night and day from what he used to be, you know what I mean? He was into art, but he wasn't focused on art or nothing, and so it's just really nice to see him literally go all out on all his art. You know, keep his mind on the right track pretty much. RINCON: Oh, I just did hot air balloons. ART VIEWER: Yeah, I mean, what were you thinking? ROB GILMER: The first time I saw his work it was just so amazing. There was just so many emotions and just incredible pains and loves and passions. He's such a great, honest person. He's, and it's honest in the painting and in real life. RINCON: It feels good. I like seeing it, you know? It's interesting. I remember making all of them, but I like watching people look at 'em, then go ask them what they think. See if they find things. VIEWER: Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you. That's tight. LAURA VRANES: So we're street art collectors. It's kind of a cross between pop art and graffiti with a political or social twist. We have one of the biggest street art collections in the Midwest, and we have everything from Banksy to Shepard Fairey to Mr. Brainwash and we have pieces from Russia and China, all over the world. I love that he's so talented, but it's unharnessed and it's so natural and it's so raw. GILMER: I think the pieces are very powerful. He definitely has a message behind what he draws, what he paints, and I really enjoy that. RINCON: This life's harder than that life. This life, it takes work, you know, it's a mission. Dangerous situations and all of that's nothing compared to having to raise kids and raise 'em right and make 'em into good men? Hopefully everything we're doing is good, but you know, you deal with their emotions, their lives, their schoolwork. It's something, you know? I would've never thought the family life. It's a lot of, lot of work, you know. Keeping 'em all happy, healthy. It's a lot of work. More work than work, you know. But it's good, it's worth it. ♪ MUSIC ♪ To maintain troop preparedness, the Nebraska National Guard is using competition to save lives on the battlefield. SOLDIER 1: And then details about it. How many are there, how many UXOs are there. Where was it located? SOLDIER 2: Truck three stopped and truck one and two already went by, so the ones that are in the last zone. MIKE TOBIAS: Tell me what you guys are doing real quick. PVT. TYLER WAUGH: We're just getting ready to send up a UXL report. So, for IEDs or any type of unexploded ordinance that we have, we have to report it up to EOD. TOBIAS: Translation, Waugh is talking about reporting a roadside bomb to explosives experts. WAUGH: Side of the road. Must remove to continue mission. TOBIAS: Waugh passes this test and moves on to another. SOLDIER: That's a go, good job. TOBIAS: Part of a busy, high stress day of training for several Nebraska Army National Guard units. A competition called best warrior where soldiers are scored on different tasks. 1ST SGT. ADAM HOMAN: We do training every month, but the big thing with the competition is that it kind of pushes them, it motivates them to train a little bit harder. SOLDIER: I have a nine line medivac. TOBIAS: At Camp Ashland, which straddles the Platte River, soldiers also practice other communications tasks like calling in a medivac helicopter for an injured soldier, and spot reports of enemy activity. SOLDIER: For this we didn't give you a green coordinate, so we asked you to describe the terrain. So it's an island, vegetated, with water all around, right? TOBIAS: Up the road at a training facility outside Omaha, soldiers from a different unit review a Humvee maintenance manual, push the disabled two ton vehicle down a paved road, and are quizzed while they give aid to a soldier who in this scenario, has stepped on a land mine and lost her leg. When they finish... SOLDIER: Transporting a casualty, typically you would go head or feet first. TOBIAS: The instructor does a hot wash, an immediate evaluation. SOLDIER: Overall, pretty good. STAFF SGT. JOHN FERGUSON: It went all right. We missed a couple things, but I guess that's always gonna happen, so again, you remember stuff when you get gigged on it more than you're gonna remember if you don't. TOBIAS: Top best warrior performers from each unit advance to the state competition in the spring. What's the competition element bring to it? SGT. 1ST CLASS JEREMY TIEDE: Team camaraderie. There's maybe some, well, not, I wouldn't say animosity, but between the different companies within the battalion wanting to be the top dog for the battalion. Students take over Wessels Living History Farm to experience life as 19th Century kids. (children chatter) (clock ticks) TEACHER: You wanna get your marbles across to fill up all these holes before that partner gets his over here. I've got another seven points. Oh! (laughs) TEACHER: Now if this toy is this heavy, what do you think a big one weighed like? It was pretty heavy, wasn't it? TEACHER: We're gonna get our skillet ready over here. Homemade pancakes fresh off the griddle. These are going to be the best pancakes ever. Oh boy, welcome to the farm. INSTRUCTOR: Nope, wrong way. You're gonna only go that way, okay? You wanna do it? Stick it, pointy end down. You're gonna turn it the other way, yep. (grinding) KIDS: Ow. INTERVIEWER: Would you like to be a farmer boy from 1890? BOY: Yes. INTERVIEWER: Really? INSTRUCTOR: Make sure everybody gets a chance to grind some cornmeal. Is there anybody that would like to live 125 years ago? (western music) Watch our stories online at netNebraska.org/NebraskaStories and go to Facebook to like us and leave a comment. Join the Nebraska Stories conversation. Nebraska Stories is funded by the Margaret and Martha Thomas Foundation, and the Nebraska Office of Highway Safety. Sustained funding for arts coverage on Nebraska Stories is provided by the H. Lee and Carol Gendler Charitable Fund and the Nebraska Arts Council and Nebraska Cultural Endowment. (rock music)