RENFREW — A highly e-steamed local artist got back on track recently after sending a first-class mural out west.

In November Tom Panei took apart his 28-by-8-foot mural of the steam locomotive that is the inspiration for the book and movie “Polar Express,” wrapped the seven panels separately in four layers of protection and covered the stack of panels with a tarp before sending it off in an open flatbed truck to Santa Barbara, Calif.

Panei explained that each year he attends the Art Prize in Grand Rapids, Mich., which is a 19-day, outdoor international art competition held each fall.

In 2014 he created the huge mural of the Pere Marquette 1225 during the competition, so those visiting could watch him work.

“I met people whose grandfathers worked on the train,” Panei said. “People were giving me hats and stuff. It was pretty neat.”

Panei created another huge mural of the Last Supper, titled “Sacrifice,” for the Art Prize competition the previous year, but struggled to come up with a subject for the 2014 competition.

He asked his father, Vincent, for suggestions and Vincent reminded him of a train he had drawn at age 15. Vincent presented the old drawing to his son and suggested he draw a train for the competition.

“I can't believe he kept it,” the younger Panei said of the 30-year-old train drawing.

So he began researching steam locomotives and found that the Pere Marquette 1225 had been restored and was traversing tracks around Grand Rapids.

To continue his research Panei called and asked to view the train for his work. When he got an emphatic “yes” from the historic train's caretakers, he traveled to Michigan to study its engine and cars.

“They let me walk around it and I took some pictures,” Panei said. “I got to sit in the cab.”

At first Panei planned to draw a sketch of the Pere Marquette and project it onto the huge panels, trace the outlines onto the panels and fill in the color at the competition.

But that process proved too time-consuming, so he sketched the huge piece himself for a month in his Butler studio.

He hauled the panels to Michigan for the Art Prize, and found out that there was quite a buzz among artists and visitors in the project because of the event's proximity to the Pere Marquette's home.

Panei placed in the top 20 of 1,700 artists with his train mural, to which he has never affixed a name.

He had an interested buyer at the competition with cash on hand to purchase the train mural, but Panei turned him down.

“I thought it would sell easily,” he said of the unique piece. “It didn't. It was a hard sell.”

Over the next few years the train mural was displayed at museums and other places all over the country, including the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and a craft brewery in Michigan.

“They ended up making a beer out of it,” Panei said.

The beer included a label of the Pere Marquette as painted by Panei.

He finally brought the mural back to Butler and was preparing to promote it for sale.

“Out of the blue this collector got ahold of me,” Panei said.

The Santa Barbara man interested in Panei's mural explained that he collects classic British cars and wanted a unique piece of artwork for the wall in the warehouse where he stores the vehicles.

It turns out the man had attended the Art Prize in 2014 and admired Panei's mural. He emailed Panei on the off chance it was still available.

Panei said the huge panels made it to California in three days and arrived in November, at about the same time as the Santa Barbara wildfire.

The buyer sent Panei photos of the fires churning through dry hills about 20 miles from his house and warehouse.

“The winds changed direction or something and the fire started going the other way and things were pretty safe,” Panei said. “For a while there it was pretty scary.”

Panei credits his father for inspiring him to use a train as a theme in the 2014 competition.

“He just thought it was pretty great because it showed a different side (of my talent),” said Panei, who normally draws abstracts. “It was hard to do because I had to do it more realistically and keep it to scale.”

Vincent Panei said he has the last canvas and the first chalk-on-wood pieces his son created displayed in his home.

“He amazes me sometimes,” said the elder Panei.

Vincent Panei has loved trains since the steam locomotives would park near the neighborhood store beside his grandmother's house in Boyers when he was a boy.

“I'd put dimes and pennies under the wheels,” he said. “I was always fascinated with trains.”

He got a job at Armco in 1969 and worked his way up to supervisor of the locomotive and truck repair garage. He retired in 1999 and worked in his son's studio for many years helping out and building frames.

“He would tell me what size of a frame he needed and I would build it,” he said.

While he can no longer work in the studio, he remains proud of his son and all the art he creates.

“He's amazing,” he said. “I just can't say enough.”