Zach Hall in number 75's boiler - Date? Photographer?.

Heber City Utah - Squeezing from a hole a little more than two feet in diameter, Zach Hall reappears from the dark belly of a steam engine in which he's been working for a good part of the day.
 
His skin and blue denim coveralls blackened by a thick layer of soot, rust, and grime, he finds more tools needed for his continuing work and climbs back down into the boiler.
 
Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, Hall shared, "every little boy's dream is to grow up and be an engineer and run a steam engine," he said.
 
The question is, would "every little boy's dream" be the same if they witnessed the great amounts of hard work Hall and other crew members at the Heber Valley Railroad depot experience daily to keep their dreams running?
 
The train depot is a place where a single project, to keep a 102-year-old steam engine up to federal safety regulations, can seem endless.
 
"It's years and years of work," Hall said after a hard day's work.
 
"It's at times a sense of great pride, and at other times so frustrating you can't see straight."
 
Along with the daily upkeep of trains, rail lines, signals, tools, and machinery at the Heber Valley Railroad, the staff has been continuing a six-year project of overhauling one of their two steam engines.
 
Built in 1907, steam engine number 75 ran on the Great Western Railroad for the Great Western Sugar Company until 1965 when it was purchased by a buyer in Denver.
 
From that point on, the locomotive was rented to various movie studios for use in a total of 35 motion pictures filmed throughout the American West including, "The Professionals", "The Cisco Kid", "Breakheart Pass", "Far and Away", and "A River Runs Through It."
 
Ten years ago, after the death of its owner, number 75 was sold to the Heber Valley Railroad and is now being overhauled to meet federal safety regulations and hopefully prolong the old engine's life.
 
"These are very well-built machines, but the reality that we're dealing with is that they're worn out," said Craig Lacey, the executive director of the railroad.
 
A crew of five full-time employees do their best to handle the large and challenging workload at the depot led by chief mechanical officer Michael Manwiller.
 
"It's dirty, it's hot, it's heavy," Manwiller said about their work.
 
"A lot of times it can be thankless, and for most of the guys it's self-rewarding."
 
Re-engineering a steam locomotive using only the subject in front of them, or occasionally the rare original drawings, is a challenging task that takes a rare breed of person to complete, said Manwiller.
 
Spanning years, the project to overhaul number 75 is restricted by limited funding, manpower, and materials.
 
"Steam locomotives were replaced just because they were so maintenance-dependent," Manwiller said.
 
Entire cities were built just to maintain steam locomotives a century ago, but the large number of skilled laborers and parts just don't exist anymore.
 
The steam engines themselves don't compare to anything else today, according to Manwiller, who has had to manufacture one-of-a-kind parts at the shop in Heber, or order replacements from as far away as China.
 
"It's an animal that you can't really relate to in any other industry," Manwiller said.
 
"It's one massive custom chopper is what it is."
 
Luckily the small but talented crew members possess a diversity of abilities that help them get by.
 
"It makes a big difference having really good people, and I feel like we have some of the best people in the industry right now," Lacey said.
 
"But it's not easy work. It's mentally challenging, it's physically demanding."
 
Unfortunately, the constant hard work of those dedicated to the Heber Valley Railroad won't be enough to save the steam engines if enough funding isn't raised.
 
As a non-profit independent agency they receive benefits such as federal surplus, but no funding from the state.
 
"It's really hard right now with the economy the way it is, people aren't in a position where they can give like they were," said Lacey.
 
"We're really scratching our heads trying to find the funds that we need to keep these steam engines going."
 
The firebox and boiler of number 75 is a US$200,000 job in itself, funded by what money the railroad makes from donations, ticket sales, and chartered rides on steam engine number 618.
 
If enough money could be raised, the project could be completed in a year and a half, according to Lacey.
 
As it stands now, the crew can only proceed slowly with what little they're given.
 
"We just kind of work on it on a time-and-money-available basis," Lacey said.
 
Time is running out though, as Heber's steam engine number 618, which currently is handling both the steam engines' work, is due for an inspection and overhaul of its own in a matter of months as number 75 continues to sit out of commission.
 
The hope is that the community will understand the importance of these steam engines and pledge their support.
 
There is an economic boost the locomotives bring to the valley through drawing in tourists and movie production companies, two of which will be filming this winter.
 
And then the historic importance of keeping the iconic steam engines running in their community just as they did for generations.
 
But for now the dirty work continues, slowly.
 
Hall and co-workers plugging away, part by part, day by day, on their endless task of maintaining the railway and their historic locomotives.
 
"It's a fascination, it's a challenge, it's being part of history, it's creating history," Hall said, listing the motivation that keeps him going on difficult days at work.
 
And although the project drags on from one year to the next, Hall enjoys the thought of what it'll be like one day when the work is finally done, at least for number 75.
 
"I can visually picture it in my head, what it's going to look like to light a fire in it for the first time, taking it on its first test run, that's when all the hard work pays off," Hall said.
 
"The work is never done, but the driving force here is to share it with the public."
 
Mark Johnston.