I had been put in control of 72 tons of steel, barreling down a mountain pass toward a town of 4,500 people. Numerous tunnels, blind curves and road crossings lay ahead. The only thing between us and disaster was the thumb-sized brass lever I held in a death grip: The brake control. In nearly 40 years as a gearhead, I have driven almost everything with an engine: Race cars, trucks, motorcycles, ATVs, go-karts, scooters, boats, a small plane. None of it prepared me for operating a 110-year-old steam locomotive.

Recently my wife, Alexa Mergen, and I had that opportunity, thanks to the “Be the Engineer” program at the nonprofit Nevada Northern Railway in Ely, Nev. It’s the only place in the country where you can take the controls of an actual train on a mainline railroad track. While other historic railways may let you drive a locomotive, they generally don’t allow you to leave the railyard. In Ely, you can drive that fire-breathing beast up a mountain canyon on 14 miles of track.  Our fireman on this trip (the person who runs the boiler and shovels coal into its flaming mouth) is Chris Nally. He was so taken with the experience of steam engines that he moved to Ely as a teenager from Fort Smith, Ark., with the dream of working for this historic railroad. At the age of 21, the dream is fulfilled: He’s now certified as an engineer, welder, fireman, mechanic and boilermaker.

“There’s no other place you can take it out and actually run it up the hill,” said Nally. “It’s like getting to ride a dinosaur, almost.” It felt like that as we chugged up Robinson Canyon aboard Engine No. 40, a historic steam engine built in 1910 and lovingly restored by the railway. Everything about it seemed prehistoric.

The cab of the locomotive is sooty, loud and uncomfortable. The icy April wind numbs our faces as it pours in through the open cab. Yet the scorching-hot boiler is comforting, like an open fire in a cave. All around me are bare metal levers, giant dials and exposed gears that control the machine. Through a gap in the steel floor, I can see one of the giant locomotive wheels coursing over the track.

The cab of the locomotive is surprisingly intimate. There are seats alongside the boiler for Nally and the “real” engineer on this trip, Angela Stevens, as we depart the railyard. This left Alexa and me with standing room only, stumbling over hunks of coal on the rattling steel apron between the engine and the coal tender. When the boiler needs feeding, we have to step onto a tiny shelf outside the cab, into the biting wind, to make room for Nally to swing his shovel. But here we are, chugging up a canyon in one of America’s most remote towns.

“You get the feeling you’re going back in time, because there’s really nothing else around,” Alexa says. “It makes you feel like you are more in the landscape than if you are in a car.” Stevens turns over the engineer’s seat to me after we leave the railyard, and I notice Nally pull a strange foil packet out of his backpack, then wedge it among the tubes and fittings on top of the boiler. But I’m too busy to ask about that.

I’m working a giant steel throttle lever, moving it gingerly through 1/8-inch notches to maintain our speed at 15 mph, and watching the track ahead as best I can around the hulking mass of the locomotive’s boiler.

The run up the canyon turns out to be relatively tame. The best part, of course, is blowing the steam whistle. A variety of established signals are used, like morse code, to let the world know what this smoking beast is going to do next. The only signal I really had to remember was the sequence of blasts to use when nearing a road crossing. You learn about all this before departure, because you must study a 130-page manual, then pass a written test.

The tracks take us through two tunnels. This plunges the cab into complete darkness, and the speedometer goes dead (it relies on a GPS signal — the only nod to modern technology I can detect aboard No. 40). I stupidly take my hands off the controls — figuring it’s best to do nothing until the blindness ends — and wait.  After emerging from the tunnels, we find ourselves running alongside Highway 50, the Loneliest Highway in America. But it doesn’t feel lonely at all, because there are people pulled onto the shoulder waving at our noisy machine and shooting video on their smartphones. Even now, there’s something magical about an archaic steam train that tugs at the emotions. For a moment, the cold and grime are forgotten and we feel like celebrities.

We soon come to a junction and it’s time to turn this rig around. I hand the controls over to Angie while she and Chris work to put No. 40 through the railroading version of a three-point turn. When it’s pointed back downhill, I take over again and quickly get a new lesson in the power of gravity.  Until now, I hadn’t really touched that little brass brake lever at all. But I soon learn why it is the most highly polished object on the entire locomotive: Legions of train engineers have gripped it nervously for over a century.

The downhill grade works relentlessly on our 72 tons. We’re not even pulling any cars, yet I’m working that thumb-sized lever continuously just to keep us under 15 mph. It’s a surprisingly delicate brake control, with movements as small as a millimeter causing dramatic changes in locomotive behavior.

Speed builds rapidly. I’m told to keep brake pressure within a certain range, as shown on a giant brass gauge atop the boiler.  But suddenly, I’m distracted by the aroma of melting cheese. Though we are barreling downhill, Nally is relaxing in the seat across from me, devouring a hot sandwich grilled on the boiler. That was the mysterious foil packet. I’m salivating but I have to set that aside, because already we’re back at the tunnels again and I can’t see a thing. This time I nervously hold fast to the controls, but I don’t move a muscle. I can feel gravity pulling us faster through the darkness, and decide to wait for daylight before messing with the controls.

When we emerge from the last tunnel, the speedometer comes to life again and I find we are well over 15 mph. Plus, there is a curve coming. I lay on more brake with the tiny lever, now slippery in my sweaty palm. We make the curve, but the downgrade increases as we head for a crossing on Ely’s 7th Street. Time to blow the steam whistle again, which now seems like a nuisance and makes me wish I had a third hand. Finally the grade levels out as we steam toward the railyard, and Angie takes the controls again. She calls me a “natural,” but I’ll never match the grace with which she handles the train.

The cost to ‘Be the Engineer’ is $820 for the steam engine, if you’re a railway member, and $595 for the diesel engine. Options are available that cost more, like pulling cars behind the locomotive. The experience is offered from May through October each year, and generally books up well in advance.

“There’s not much difference between the regular crew operating the train and you operating the train,” says Mark Bassett, president of the Nevada Northern Railway. “People have to realize, not only are they renting the locomotive, but they’re renting the entire railroad, because they are the only train on the railroad.” The program has been offered for more than 20 years, and Bassett said it is vital to keeping the historic railroad operating, in addition to regular tourist excursions. “That money goes directly back into operation of the locomotive,” he said. “It’s been a very successful program for us, and it brings people to Ely from literally around the world. There are a few other ‘Be the Engineer’ programs out there, but I think ours is by far the best.”

For more information, visit:

http://nnry.com/pages/engineer.php

 Or call:

(866) 407-8326