A piece of history arrives in southern York county. The York #17 steam locomotive made its way to new freedom after a 600 mile trek from Illinois. This is all in preparation for the 150th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg later this summer.
10 years of preparation and construction all leads up to this.
“It’s finally coming to fruition,” says locomotive constructor, David Kloke.
The grand arrival of a rebuilt 1864 steam locomotive.
“The reaction in New Freedom and along the railroad line has been really, really good,” says Chief Operating Officer, Bob Gotwols.
It’s a big deal for people in New Freedom, especially those who have been tracking the building process from the start.
“Every now and then we’d go check online to see what was going on with the train, it was being put on the chastity, the wheels were being constructed,” says train enthusiast, Robin Spielberg.
The interesting thing about this locomotive is everything down to the paint on the outside to the mechanics on the inside strongly resemble the exact train Lincoln rode 150 years ago.
“We’ve had a lot of people do research into what a locomotive train looked like in the 1800s,” says Gotwols.
David Kloke says the $2.5 million dollar train is strikingly similar despite only being able to look at black and white photos.
“Hollywood likes to portray them as dirty and black and they were never like that,” says Kloke.
Steam Into History officials are highly anticipating this Thursday when the engine is fired up.
“We`re looking forward to running a lot of trains up and down the track and educating folks on the history of york county,” says Gotwols.
Rides on the locomotive will be open to the public and will travel from New Freedom to Hanover Junction. It starts on June 2nd and runs into December.