Local Student Often Joins Train Hobbyists at Kirkwood Station

For his 13th birthday on Saturday, Michael Squires of St. Peters wanted something simple: A few hours at the Kirkwood train station to get video of another train rumbling along the tracks.

It's a regular outing for Squires, his father Mike and his mother Donna, who make the drive from St. Charles County and might often make a day of it. The seventh-grader from  comes by it naturally: His dad joined the St. Louis National Railway Historical Society in 1989. 

"Both my grandfathers worked for the railroad,"Mike Squires said. "One of them worked for the Alton Southern in Madison, IL. Another worked for the Missouri Pacific in Poplar Bluff. So I guess it's kind of in my blood."

His son was the lone videographer on Saturday, but it's common for train workers to see five, six, seven photographers or videographers with their tripods strategically planted along the rails.

"It's mostly adults, but it's people of all ages, multiple sexes," said Ken Thompson, a volunteer at the Kirkwood station. "They just like to see big machines. ... And they try to solve the problems of the world in between trains."

Michael Squires paces along the bend in the tracks as they sweep past the station. He carries a radio to monitor communication between the trains and their handlers. When there's a crowd of photographers at the station, there's a time for fun and time to get down to business.

"We talk around, we crack jokes, make each other laugh," he said. "But when the trains come through, most of the time the only time we do talk is when we see something really cool."

What constitutes "cool" in the eyes of these hobbyists? For Michael, it was a recent appearance by a Kansas City Southern locomotive, No. 4103, an SD-70 Ace, colored red, black and yellow.

These folks aren't just taking pictures. They know what they're talking about.