MONTICELLO, Ill. (WCIA) -- Years and years of hard work for one man in Central Illinois is paying off.

John Downing's life work has been restoring a train engine at the Monticello Railway Museum, and it's finally in motion for the first time since he started the restoration process.

Downing got the engine in 2004 and has spent the past 21 years restoring it. For eight of those years, he was working full-time but spent every weekend working on the piece. The rest of the time since he retired, he's spent every day bringing the train back to life.

Downing added that the E8 locomotive came up for sale in Nashville, and it used to pull a Broadway dinner train.

He bought it for $40,000, and it's now worth $200,000. Downing took every bit of rust off of it, replaced steel, and has hand built

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