BIG BOY WAS COOL.

Kevin Solari, managing editor of the local newspaper, generally limits his train riding to rapid transit into Wrigleyville, parking being nothing short of unpleasant there.  But Big Steam makes him take notice.

It wasn't only me who got sucked in either. Tuesday morning I was standing near the railroad tracks in DeKalb near the crossing at Second Street. Dozens of people of all ages were out there. I spoke to a woman who said she wasn't a train person either, but after a few minutes she was trying to navigate the area around the crossing, looking for the best vantage point to see the train, while also staying safely behind the crossing gates.

Along the fence line, older people who could remember being passengers on trains powered by steam engines stood next to children who had only seen a steam engine as an emoji.

A whole community came out to watch a piece of history pass through. Many had never seen anything like it before, maybe only as the icon of America that railroads have been fore [c.q.] close to two centuries. Others came to once again see a memory from years long past.

I'm glad I was there. I can't say if my newfound fascination with trains will last now that Big Boy has moved on, but I know more than I did a week ago and I've experienced something few others have as a result. What more can you ask for?

Steam locomotives still symbolize railroading, perpetuating the journalistic atrocity of high speed trains "chugging," although in many ways these are the good old days for (freight) railroads. Passenger not so much, but that might yet change.