Brian Fanslau loves his work. And now he has a new toy that will make it a little easier — and a lot more fun.

When the town of Woolwich decided to replace a fire truck, selectmen put the old one up for bid. Fanslau bid $5,500 and “won” the 23-year-old truck.

One might wonder why anyone who isn't planning to fight fires in his spare time would want an old fire truck. “I bought it to haul my tools around,” he said. “It will be good to have all my hundred-year-old tools with me when I go to work on a steam engine.”

Fanslau, of Alna, is one of only a few specialists around who works on steam engines. He works at Boothbay Railway Village, maintaining and repairing the three steam engines there, and travels to other nonprofit museums and railways that feature steam engine locomotives.

“It's my job and my hobby,” he said. “I've done this for a long time. You get a reputation, and you get some customers over and over.”

Fanslau said the Railway Village is open 140 days out of the year, and it's a full-time job keeping the engines running. “It's a challenge to run steam engines every day. A lot of places use steam off and on, but we use it exclusively,” he said.

It's also expensive. The Railway Village engines consume 300 to 400 pounds of coal and 1,000 gallons of water daily. And that amount only carries a train about 20 miles.

There is a giant lathe from the 1890s that Fanslau uses to maintain the big metal train wheels, or, as he calls them, tires. Turning them on the lathe keeps them smooth, but eventually it wears them down.

He said the tires last 40 or 50 years. “When they get down to 1 1/4-inch thick, they're done.”

There have been offers of newer equipment, but Fanslau likes the idea of using old tools and machinery. “It's neat to use old equipment to keep old things running,” he said. “Everything we have here (at the museum) is old.”

Fanslau said he loved trains when he was a kid. He grew up in New Jersey, but spent summers in Boothbay Harbor, where his parents have a summer home. He went to college in Pennsylvania and graduated with a degree in physics. Then he came back to Maine.

Fanslau, with help from Charles Vaughn of Coopers Mills, Jason Lamontagne of Bath, and David Blackman of Edgecomb, who built the cab, recently spent a year and a half building a steam engine for Edaville Railroad Amusement Park in Carver, Mass.

According to Fanslau, the park was originally a railroad that was built using equipment (including two-foot gauge rails, called narrow gauge), from Maine. The railroad was used to transport cranberries from bogs.

Now, among other amusements, the Massachusetts park features a train ride through the cranberry bogs and a day of events centered around the Thomas the Tank Engine children's books.

Fanslau is looking forward to using his new fire truck to transport his antique tools to work sites. He said the truck only has 17,000 miles on it, and no rust. “And it gets 18 to 20 miles per gallon.” Not bad for a big, old cool-looking fire truck.

Fanslau has worked at the Railway Village for 15 years and his enthusiasm for steam engines and old railroad trains is catching.

He said he is especially thankful to founder George McEvoy and McEvoy’s friends for having the foresight to save these historic treasures of Maine’s past. “Without this place, thousands of kids and adults, including myself, would never have experienced this fascinating piece of our history,” he said.

If you have a steam engine that needs fixing (or would like to have one built from scratch using 100-year-old equipment and tools) and you’re a nonprofit, call Fanslau. Just don't expect him to put out any fires.

Fanslau is planning a “behind the scenes shop tour” for Saturday, April 12 at 1 p.m. All are welcome.