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Harold Borovec and No. 15 keep steaming in Washington state
Few people can have a relationship with a steam locomotive that spans more than 70 years. Only a rare soul can say that as a child he saw his favorite locomotive during its regular operating career, then as a young man worked for its railroad, and as an adult helped to place the same engine in a park for display.
Rarer still is the lucky one who got to rescue the engine from the park, restore it, and now runs it in preservation. But few people are as blessed as 80-year-old Harold Borovec, a hero to many in preservation circles in the Pacific Northwest and nationwide.
The chief mechanical officer for Washington state's ChehalisCentralia Railroad Museum, Borovec has a bond with the line's logging Mikado No. 15 that may be unique in North America.
Borovec was born in Chehalis, a small town between Seattle and Portland, in 1927. Baldwin-built No. 15 arrived in the same community on the Cowlitz, Chehalis & Cascade Railway, a 32-mile logging railroad, the following year. Built in 1916, No. 15 had spent her previous years working for the Puget Sound & Cascade Railway near Mt. Vernon, Wash., as No. 200. When he was a child, Borovec and his family lived in a home close to CC&C's shops, and when he saw the 15 moving in the yard, Borovec knew he'd seen something special. "It was love at first sight," he said.
His interest in steam railroading was so deep that it led him to a position with the CC&C as a yard checker and courier at age 16. As an adult, he worked for the Northern Pacific as assistant chief clerk, but he stayed in touch with the CC&C, his friends there, and, of course, No. 15. While working for the CC&C, Borovec learned as much as...