Of Trains and Prayers

At Dunsmuir Railroad Resort a model train on a track traversing a cement model of the Castle Crags was not running, regardless of how many times our grandson (and others) pushed the appointed red button. Each time we were near, Maverick made the plea “Can I try and push the button just one more time?”  Each time we let him try, accompanied by words of caution that it probably wouldn’t work.  It did not work. Not a sound from the stout little engine, not a puff of smoke or poof of steam. Despite little boy eyes peering, and little boy hopes held high, the engine sat cold and liveless on the adventurous looking track winding its way through realistic rock mountains.  As we began to turn away, we watched through watering grandparent eyes as Maverick stood, almost at attention, eyes closed, hands posed in prayer. A moment passed, maybe 2 before he turned and happily skipped towards us, grabbing our grandparent hands, and announced, “I prayered”.   Our grandparent eyes watered a bit more.  We climbed on a retired Willamette Shay logging engine, dined in an old passenger car, spent the night in an aged caboose of days past, accumulating memories of moments present.  

Boys and Trains

Breakfast was had in the same dining car as dinner, and we were greeted as we entered by a cheery “Sit anywhere you’d like” from a now familiar hostess. Maverick decidedly chose the same table we’d sat at the evening prior, one with a view of the model train which remained sitting cold and unmoving in the morning frost.  As we enjoyed plates of fluffy hotcakes and warmed ourselves with hot cocoa, we watched other children push repeatedly on “the button” to no avail before eventually wandering to other areas of the railroad park.  When we’d had our fill of the trainman meals,  a smiling proudly five-year-old doorman with a trace of hot chocolate mustache held back the weathered, rusty train door as we exited the dining car.  

Nothing warms a soul like breakfast in a train dining car.

We descended the metal steps and were once again faced with the courtyard centerpiece model mountain and its’ motionless locomotive.  Our young doorman now reverted back to hopeful 5-year-old train enthusiast asked, “Can I push the button just one more time”?  “You can” we replied, followed by my meek attempt to weaken the disappointment I was certain would follow.  “Just remember that it is probably still broken but we will come back another time when it is working”.  

I am fairly certain Maverick did not hear my warning, as he rushed to the red button mounted on the nearby train shed wall.  Little boy fingers flattened against the wooden plank building as a little boy thumb stretched and pushed.  A little boy head holding hope filled eyes swiveled to look backward towards the model then back to the button as he, more desperately this time, pushed, and pushed, and pushed.  Then we heard it. A light but steady huffing sound as if a bellows were being pumped, faster and faster. “It’s going, it’s going buddy!”, a shocked Papa not so calmly and not at all quietly shouted, as Maverick turned and ran the few steps to the edge of the model.  Looking amazed, but with an understanding tone in his voice, Maverick quite calmly and matter-of-factly declared “I told you I prayered.” Attempting to describe the happiness of this little train loving dreamer is difficult. Pure joy. Pure, pure, joy.   

Castle Crag model at Dunsmuir Train Resort

Time was spent there, on this morning in Dunsmuir, California, following the little engine as it led its cars and the caboose that “looks just like the one we slept in” around and through, over and under, the features on its’ skillfully built track.  The red button was pushed again, and again, and yet again.  Finally satisfied, with fingertips freezing and cheeks aglow from the morning chill, we were two thankful grandparents and an absolutely content five-year-old, descendants of a long-ago logging train brakeman making our way back to the warmth of retired McCloud River 228 Caboose.  Quite certain were we, that a Great-Great-Grandfather and his train crew from 1933 watched with ancestral pride from a Roundhouse high above. 

1933-Hammond Lumber Company Logging Train Crew at
Crannell Roundhouse - Mavericks’ Great Great Grandfather at far right.