Niles residents will have an opportunity to get an inside scoop next month into author Kevin Keefe’s journey to create his award-winning book, “Twelve Twenty-Five: The Life and Times of a Steam Locomotive.”

The book is the recipient of the State History Award 2016 and is recognized as a Michigan Notable Book 2017.

Keefe will host a visual presentation and discussion from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, June 15, at the Niles District Library, as part of his Michigan Notable Author Tour.

Like a train, Keefe will embark on several stops throughout the state to share his work.

The book follows locomotive 1225, a 100-foot-long World War II era train that once hauled grain, coal and auto parts along the Pere Marquette Railroad.  After serving as the workhorse of Michigan, the train was later donated to Michigan State University by Chrysler Executive Forest Akers in 1957, where the historic steam hauler became a campus icon that intrigued students to restore and repair the train to its former glory.

“The book tells the history briefly, but mostly it tells the story about how a bunch of students who did not know any better tried to do something that was almost impossible,” Keefe said.

But Keefe was not just someone writing about the locomotive. While earning his journalism degree at Michigan State University, he joined forces with students to bring the train back to life.

“I signed up to help them and quickly got deeply involved,” Keefe said. “It was just like a club. Our mission was to restore this wonderful engine and get it running again.”

The writer helped to get the word out by handling the project’s publicity. He also got his hands dirty disassembling the engine in the midst of campus with a student run group.  The project drew some scorn from the university, Keefe said.

“We were tearing down an old steam engine in the middle of campus,” Keefe said. “We were not positive with the administration.”

But for all their effort, students realized they needed more help in bring the train back to life. The train remained on campus until 1977. In 1983, the train was transported to the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Michigan.

Spoiler alert: the train was able to be restored and went on to inspire others, even becoming the animated star of the 2004 movie “The Polar Express.”

The Niles community helped to aid Keefe’s love for locomotives. The writer was born in Chicago, and his family moved to Niles when he was 5 years old.

Keefe had toy trains, but he was most intrigued by the real deal and spent a great amount of time at the Niles Train Station on Fifth Street, which still stands today as the local Amtrak station. Keefe would watch the trains come and go, occasionally taking a ride with his family aboard a train to Chicago.

When he was not at the train station, Keefe visited an abandoned railyard on the northeast side of town. At home amongst the freight cars and docks, Keefe likens the area to the “Roman Ruins.”

The local history of the train also fascinated Keefe. In the 1930s and 1940s, Niles was one of many railroad towns. The industry supplied hundreds of jobs and brought crowds of visitors to the Niles train station.

Keefe would again get the chance to indulge in his passion as a Niles Daily Star reporter.

After graduating with a degree in journalism from Michigan State University, Keefe was hired as a reporter at the Daily Star in 1976. Working for a small newspaper was the perfect chance to grow his love for writing and hang out more at the tracks.

“You got to [write about] everything,” Keefe said. “It was wonderful.”

The job gave him a chance to talk more with those at the station, and a couple of times he was privy to go inside the cab of the locomotives.

From his time at the Niles Daily Star, Keefe’s writing career would grow. After serving the Star for a year, Keefe went on to write for the South Bend Tribune, the Oakland Press in Detroit and the Milwaukee Sentinel. Keefe would return to the Niles Daily Star for a couple of years.

In 1987, Keefe joined the editorial staff at Trains Magazine — a publication that had inspired him since he was a child.  Keefe rose from an editorial staffer to associate editor to editor-in-chief at the magazine.

As to returning to his hometown to share his story, Keefe said: “Why not?”

“I chose to come back to Niles,” Keefe said, “because what the hell, I grew up there.”