Imagine, standing inside a steam locomotive cab, pushing and pulling the levers that make it go. Adjusting the throttle, shoveling coal (okay, maybe that’s not part of the dream), yanking on the whistle, just chuffing along — in command of tons of rocking and rolling steel. The romantic dreams of many a young child.

Well, if Bob Yargar, Peter Jeffrey and the Shelburne Museum get their way, Engine 220 might be available for dreams.

While touring the Shelburne Museum in 1989, Bob Yargar noticed the steam locomotive #220, while housed under shelter in the railroad exhibit area, was starting to rust. As an employee of the then Central Vermont Railroad, and like most railroad men, Yargar couldn’t stand to see an old steam engine die. He offered to help at least stabilize the corrosion. The Museum not only accepted his offer but initiated Project 220 which led to restoring the Locomotive of the Presidents.

Decommissioned in 1955 and donated to the Museum in 1956 by the Central Vermont Railroad, the #220 became a part of the Railroad Exhibit which includes the Grand Isle private car, the tender, a freight shed and the former private railroad station building. This exhibit is one of 38 exhibits and historical structures that make up the Shelburne Museum.

Built in February, 1915 for CVRR and their last operating steam locomotive, the #220 is a 4-6-0 class engine. Meaning, it has four smaller wheels under the front cylinders, six large drive wheels and no wheels under the firebox. All locomotives were rated by their wheel configuration.

Why do people donate their time to such a project? Bob Yargar grew up in a railroad town in Kansas, his great-grandfather worked on the Rock Island Line. Yargar taught for ten years and gave that up when an opportunity to work on trains came along. Peter Jeffrey’s grandfather was a engineer in England on the London & North Eastern Railway and his “regularly assigned” engine is now on display in York’s National Railway Museum. Occasionally he ran the Queen’s train. These men seem to live and breathe railroads. If you visit the museum on a Saturday you will probably find at least one of them working.

Seven years have passed and Yargar, Jeffrey and their crew have put countless volunteer hours into restoring the massive engine. And it is far from moving anywhere. Although, Yargar points out, it could roll if pushed. The brakes have been released from their solid hold on the wheels and work.

Among other completed tasks the volunteers have polished and greased all axle journals, cleaned the smokebox and tender, restored the cab windows, doors and seatboxes, cleaned and rebuilt the entire air brake system and turbo-generator, repaired the electrical and lighting systems, restored the gauges and inspected the cylinders, valves, firebox and smokebox, and the upper part of the boiler interior. And that’s just for starters.

It took years of oozing oil onto recalcitrant bolts just to get some of the countless things to budge. Welding torches are used on less reluctant nuts to expand them enough to loosen with a wrench. All of the bolts must be taken off and checked. The boiler has to be relined as the original asbestos as been removed and there must be insulation. But first, the men have to get to the innards — after the bolts are removed.

To make sure the boiler is usable, an ultra-sound device will be used. There can be no question about the integrity of the steel as steam expands about 1,600 times once it’s released which is what gives it the power to run the locomotive.

The axle bearings, housed inside journal boxes, have to be treated carefully. If they are left to sit for years, the dust and corrosion eat away at the soft metal parts. If you move the train, even a few feet without caring for these parts, you are asking for trouble. It took two years, but all the bearings on #220 have been taken apart, cleaned, oiled and restored. Many a display train has been seriously damaged by moving it without checking and fixing the axle bearings.

“What people really want to do is make the train go,” says Yargar. “They want to get up into the cab, not just ride behind it and take pictures. We would like to make it available so people can pull on the brakes or throttle, and shovel coal.”

The Museum has applied for an ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation Act) grant to help with the restoration of Project 220. Part of the funds in this act may only be used for special Transportation Enhancement Activities — including the preservation of historic transportation artifacts. Steam locomotives. They have been turned down twice in the past. And 1997 may be the last year ISTEA funds will be available. As Jeffrey, a soft-spoken Brit, says, “Hopefully they will notice our persistence this time. No. 220 is the only existing main line steam locomotive from a Vermont-based railway. Having it operable would boost tourism, at the Museum, and everywhere else it appeared. The state economic development folks in Montpelier get frequent requests for a steam train from producers of period films. At present, they cannot oblige.”

Until then, they are relying on the generosity of the visiting public, corporate donations (Wyeth Nutritional in Milton) and those from the Central Vermont Railway Veterans Association, the National Railway Historical Society’s Champlain Valley Chapter, Central Vermont Railway Historical Society, among others. Some have donated money and in some cases tools and equipment, as well as labor (the former Central Vermont Railway donated some of Yargar’s time years ago, during a slow period.)

Phase One of the grant for restoration includes creating visitor access to the engine cab as well as making the entire length of the train available for viewing for those in wheelchairs. While mobility-impaired visitors may not be able to enter the train itself as the doors are very narrow, at least the visitors will be able to see into the cab or windows and get a better idea of what the interior is like.

Yargar reckons that with, say, a few more thousand dollars (300 or so?) and several years of steady work on her, the #220 could be rolling again, even if it’s just for the occasional excursion up and down the Shelburne’s existing track.

That is their dream. That is what keeps the men toiling.