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My First Wild West
Train Adventure |
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Speaking of riding the rails, another reason I’m
obsessed with trains is because we used to ride several trains at different amusements
parks when I was growing up. Does anyone remember Rolling Green Park or Ghost Town In The
Glen? Knoebels Amusement Park is still alive and kicking in Elysburg, PA. with two
different small scale trains to ride. But the best ride of all took place in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania. (Where the big
Bloomsburg fair has been held now for 144 years.) Back when I was younger,
Bloomsburg had a little Wild West Theme Town with a real live, full sized, scenic train
ride. The flood of 1972 which forced us out of our house and into a flood trailer for a
couple years also tore up their tracks and made a real mess of that little train. To this
day I still miss it. It was the most fun anybody could possible hope to have in one
lifetime. Remember that I was already watch TV shows with trains in them. Wild West
westerns with bandits robing the express and singing cowboys on horseback to save the day.
This little railroad was just like TV. The train as I remember had a cute little steam
engine similar to the one on Petticoat Junction with a couple coaches. The whole town,
including the station, was just like a little false-front WILD WEST town. The store owners
and other town folk dressed up in  costumes like would have been worn in that time
period. The best part about all this was that they had a sheriff and before each train
ride, he’d make all the little kids who thought they were brave enough into deputies.
He’d then divide out several little sacks of gold to each of us. Our job was to hold
onto that gold and protect it if any outlaws attacked the train. So we all boarded the
train and off we went. After stopping to take on water, and heading full steam back into
town, several masked riders on horseback would hold up the train. One of the bandits would
go from car to car looking for the gold. Those of us who made it back to the station with
our stash got a reward. Needless to say I always got my reward. One time I remember very
well was when my cousin Brian was with us. He’s just a few years younger then me and
lived next door with his mom with my grandparents after we moved into the other half of
the house. Anyway, by this time I was in school and learning some stuff, like Santa Claus
wasn’t real and so on and so forth, but we wanted Brian to have a good time. |
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| (NOTE: Actually it was a train set that
finished the Santa Claus myth for me. One time close to Christmas, dad wanted me to get
something out of his closet. Way in the back I saw a new train set. I kept my mouth shut
until Christmas day and then announced that I knew who Santa was, mom and dad! I knew what
was beneath the wrapping before I began to open it. Sure enough, Santa brought
me the same train set I saw in the closet.) |
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| My dad tried his darnest to destroy the magic of the great
Wild West Adventure for me on this one particular ride, but it still brings a smile to my
face to relive telling it. My father explained the reason the outlaws knew who to search
when they stopped the train was pretty obvious - the sheriff pinned a deputies badge on
each of his newly sworn in employees. I even remember we had to hold up our right hands
and repeat a couple lines after the sheriff in which we swore to protect the gold at all
costs and not give it up to the outlaws. But dad ruined the magic when he pointed out that
the outlaw who went through the cars looking for the gold didn’t jump off any
speeding horse like in the movies but hopped on the back of the train as it was leaving
the station. But let me finish by telling you how we saved our bag of gold that day. When
my cousin and I ran up to the sheriff to be sworn in as deputies, the sheriff only had one
badge and one bag of gold left to hand out. No problem, my aunt Shirley quickly solved
that little problem - one of us would wear the badge and the other one would hold onto the
gold. Now like I said, the outlaw who searched through the train only needed to point his
gun at the kids wearing badges and the gold was handed over pretty darn quick like. But
another fine piece of trivia to add to this story is by this time my cousin and I had
watched thousands of hours of Warner Brother Cartoons with Bugs Bunny and friends, so we
knew how to outsmart Yosemite Sam. Once we got on the train, dad filled us in on how the
outlaw was watching which kids got on the train and knew who had the badges and money. Dad
even saw the outlaw talking to the sheriff just before the train pulled out. No doubt the
sheriff was supplying the gang with inside information, and this time around including the
facts that one of us had the badge and the other one had the gold. Our mothers did their
best to bring us up right, so we were church regulars at this time and we knew it was a
wrong to tell lies. So, once the train got underway my cousin and me traded the gold and
badge. This way, if the sheriff had told the bandit anything about us, our little trick
would surely confuse the emery. And then as the outlaw with the smoking gun came up the
aisle, thinking quick like, we gave the gold to my mom to hide in her purse. Sure enough
the outlaw that boarded the train made a big "to do" because of our badge and
even suspected that we two were in this together (see, dad’s right some of the time),
and being that we could not tell lies because we knew it was a sin, when we were asked to
swear that we didn’t have the gold, we both could honestly swear on a stack of bibles
that we didn’t have any gold. So the outlaw left us live this time. When we got back
to the station we handed over our gold and got our reward, a little fishnet bag full of
gold coins. (Chocolate candies wrapped in gold foil to look like real money.) |
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