I love the illustrations:  they evoke the time period well and draw the reader in.  Unfortunately, the writing doesn’t live up to the illustrations.  The story is not told very well, and this reader was left wondering why I’m supposed to care about this particular bit of obscure American history. Questions are left unanswered.  After the big build up of acquiring the locomotive and explaining its purpose, it says it went three miles on its first run and had to turn around because there was a bridge it couldn’t fit under, but it never says whether they resolved that problem or not, whether it ever actually served its intended purpose or not.