Some boys are raised around cars. For others, it’s tractors. Francis Orr is one of the rare few who can say he grew up around steam engines. “My father’s father was a locomotive engineer who farmed with steam and ran a steam roller for the county,” he says. “My dad fired a boiler in a generating plant, creating electricity for the town.” And when Francis and his parents crossed Long Island Sound to visit his mother’s parents on Long Island, New York, they took the steam-powered Park City ferry.
“My dad flashed his Masonic ring to get us down to see the compound steam engine,” Francis recalls. “At 7 years old, seeing everything going up and down, round and round,” he says, “I was hooked.”