http://www.agsem.com/jakewilliams.html

Home   About   Contacts   Directions   Events  Exhibits   The Ignitor  

Thoughts of an Engineer
Jake Williams

Five AM on a Saturday morning I drag my tired butt out of bed, throw on a pair of oil stained bib overalls, jump in my pickup truck and head out of the drive, sucking down black coffee like my life depends on it.

I intend to spend today, my day OFF, standing only inches away from a 330 degree steam boiler. I will carry arm loads of cord wood. I will use my bare hands to slather grease between the teeth of huge open gears. For the next twelve hours I will be operating a machine that would give a modern safety inspector nightmares. Today I will sweat. I will become disgustingly dirty. Bumps, bruises and burns are very much within the realm of possibility. Did I mention this was my day off? With that in mind, I have to ask myself WHY?!?!

The answer is that I love it. I am helping to preserve a part of history, and I am sharing my passion for preservation with others. Others like me, who similarly give up their free time to tend these old iron beasts. And also with the public at large. Folks young and old. Some can recall the days when the cry of the steam whistle signaled the start of a new day back on Grandpa’s farm, and others who have never seen such a thing before.

There’s a very fulfilling feeling that goes along with taking part in such an operation. I think my fellow Steam Team member Scott Higgins said it best. Somebody asked him about his ownership of his 1916 Russell. His response was to the affect of “It’s hard to think of yourself as the owner of something like this. It’s more like I’m just the custodian of it for a little while.”

His words ring true. I operate our museum’s 16hp Advance, built in 1902. That machine was at work two decades before my Grandfather was born. It’s my hope that people will still be able to come and see the old work horse in operation long after I’m gone.

At the age of twenty-six I am still looked upon as a youngster in the time honored ranks of steam engineers, but I am already thinking of some time many years from now when I’m an “old timer”.

I sincerely hope enough people will take interest and step forward to carry on this dying art. I want to be able to pass it on to a new generation of engineers, not yet born. The days when these little steamers drug their heavy loads across the American prairie are long gone. But they won’t be forgotten.... as long as there are nuts who’ll get up early on a Saturday morning....