July 31 Learn to Drive a Steam Engine

On July 31st, the club held a “Learn to Drive a Steam Engine” event. Last month, the club put a sign up form on Facebook asking if any children would like to learn how these machines operate. We had 11 kids along with their parents show up to the event. The first part of the day was each person getting a quick tutorial about how a steam engine operates from Scott Ready.

Each child started off with an electric engine. Tyler and Brady Irwin were kind enough to not only loan their engines for the event, they also showed each person how they operate.

After taking a few laps with the electrics, the kids then were paired with a steam engine and operator. Each student got to learn what each control does in the cab. All the kids had a lot of fun and most made the comment they were unaware of how complicated a steam engine is before they arrived today.

A lot of great memories were made that day! Comments such as, “this is the best day of my life” were commong. Everyone had an amazing time at the track.

Huge thanks to Scott Reedy, Brad Malone, Mike Bassham, Michael Haywood, Matt Irwin, Tyler Irwin, and Brady Irwin for helping with this event.