Watson Station looks for qualified crew to put 1948 steam train back on the track
Don Harrold, Executive Editor
editor@enterprisepub.com
Missouri Valley’s little steam train is out of service while Watson Station volunteers look for people qualified to run it. Mark Warner of Watson Station said the group hopes to have the steamer back on the track this fall.
“In 2006, we had formed a committee of people, pretty informal, that were interested in restoring our Ottaway steam train,” Warner said. “It’s a 1948 actual coal-fired steamer, and it ran from 1950 to approximately the late ’90s.”
“My stepfather had purchased it, purchased the unit from the fire department — Missouri Valley Fire Department,” Warner said. “They brought it up here from Wichita, Kansas, in 1950. ... Actually, the fire department in Missouri Valley purchased the unit.”
The department bought the train “for recreation, I think,” Warner said, and there was no track at the time. “They laid the track in an oval across the road by the poultry building. And they built a little long shed to store it in.”
“The state wouldn’t, at this point, would not let them go through that building now because you’d get your head taken off,” Warner said. “It was pretty low.”
“When we formed our group, went to the city and proposed putting up a building, they were agreeable,” Warner said. “At that point, we were thinking about just putting up a smaller unit across the road over there where that playground sits, just on the west side of the swimming pool.”
“Well, after considerable thought and time and raising money and such, we had much more success than we originally anticipated, so we went back to them and asked them if we could utilize the area where the carnival used to sit, in this current spot where we are right now, which was directly south of the old area,” Warner said. “They agreed to it, and that’s pretty much how we got started.”
“We are a division of the city,” Warner said. “We are under the city’s auspices. My family, my mother and I actually gave the train to the parks board of Missouri Valley, so we are under the direction of the parks board.”
“We answer actually to the city,” Warner said. “... But we go directly through the city and the city clerk’s office.”
“We have our own nine-member board, which controls this, our operation here as Watson Station,” Warner said. “And then the money is kept under the auspices of the city. So the city controls the money.”
“We deposit everything in the city’s account,” Warner said. “They take it to the bank, and that way they have the fiduciary responsibility as the city nonprofit.”
“A lot of it’s historical,” Warner said. “A lot of people did not want to see the little steamer leave town, so that’s the primary reason we refurbished it.”
“We had it completely gone through by a machinist down in South Dakota,” Warner said. “Since it’s very time-consuming to run that little steamer, we purchased two gas units in addition to it.”
“That unit has the three little green cars right there, each one seating four at a time,” Warner said. “So we can comfortably seat 12 children. As you can see, it’s a 12-gauge, so it wasn’t designed to haul adults.”
“Although back in 1948, 1950, when we started operating it, the people were not as large as they are now,” Warner said. “... We’ve completely — my stepbrother completely redid it. The old panels are hanging on the wall back there, as you can see.”
The season opens the first Saturday in May. “We operate until the end of October, and at that point, our last function that we have is what we call our Halloween function, our Halloween Express,” Warner said.
“And then we close for a month,” Warner said. “And on the first week of December, the first Saturday in December, we have what’s called our Polar Express, in which we take over just about the whole city park.”
Attendance runs as high as 1,600 to 1,700 people, Warner said. “Santa Claus is over in the groom’s hall, and he will run upwards of 700 kids across his lap that day.”
“Each year we try to improve,” Warner said. “Our board has several ideas that we’d like to be able to do. I think one of the main ideas right now is just improve the grounds.”
“We spent yesterday, several of us spent yesterday, improving the track,” Warner said. “We put in new ties. We try to always make sure that we have the current standards that we need.”
“Our curves are fairly sharp, so they require a lot of railroad ties,” Warner said. “So it takes a lot of time on the grounds, and re-welding the straps, replacing the ties, and rebalancing each railroad tie. Each curve has to be a half a bubble on a level, half a bubble high on the outside curve.”
“We actually are open during the winter to private birthday parties and tours if we’re contacted ahead and if we can schedule it,” Warner said. “We won’t operate if there’s ice on the track.”
“Inclement weather, we just don’t operate,” Warner said. “It’s for safety.”
“Well, the Halloween event is pretty neat,” Warner said. “It’s $5 for all day. All our volunteers dress up.”
“We try to make it fun for the kids, not too scary, because our average age rider is 6 or 7 years old,” Warner said. “... We decorate the outside grounds as well as the inside building.”
“We have a group of gals that do a really, really good job on that, especially our Christmas event,” Warner said. “It takes several days of decorating both buildings, the groom’s hall as well as our train station building. It’s worth coming to.”
“There is no charge for the Christmas event,” Warner said. “We put out freewill offering cans if they’d like to donate something, because we run primarily on our revenue and donations and we don’t get any help from anybody other than that. We’re a total volunteer organization.”
“It’s a very unique operation,” Warner said. “We have a lot of people that come out of Omaha and tell us that, ‘We don’t have anything like this in Omaha.’ It’s a small operation.”
“It doesn’t take a long time to be here,” Warner said. “We’ve got a lot of antiques in the middle room, railroad memorabilia primarily. So if you like railroad, you’ll like this place.”
Watson Station’s season runs from the first Saturday in May through the end of October, closing with the $5 Halloween Express. The free Christmas event is held the first Saturday in December, and private birthday parties and tours can be arranged in the winter by contacting Watson Station in advance. Snacks and food are offered during events but not on regular Saturday and Sunday operating days, Warner said.
