RailRoadFan.com

Just remembered this the other day and don't remember if I told anyone on here or not. Back in the Michigan Northern days, during their "Cherry Blossom Special" during TC's Cherry Fest, that year was extremely dry. I believe to start, they had Geep 1603 pulling the trains but at least once a day, the lack of spark arresters on the engine kept starting fires along the line out between Acme and Williamsburg. They sent 1602 or 1601 to replace her after repeated calls from the fire department. At the beginning of one of the trips, one of the fires was still burning out near Lautner road so, MIGN pulled the train out to Grawn instead. I was able to ride in the cab this trip (I was there everyday riding the trains and picking up trash-cool work for a kid). The trip was uneventful for the most part until the return trip. We passed thru the former Boardman Yard and headed down grade towards the trestle. "crap" the engineer yelled (I think Bud Zosso)- 'there's kids on the bridge". Sure enough, about five or six kids with their bikes were on the trestle jumping off into the water. He laid on the horn hard and a couple of the kids tossed their bikes off then jumped, some just jumped. Two bikes remained on the bridge and the locomotive made short work of them. Stopped at the station now, several employees and the Police ran back to the bridge to check on the kids. Every was ok and the kids got a good talking to. That was the most excitement during the excursions. The only other whoopsie to happen was that we once clipped a car at the Parsons/Garfield crossing. Again, nobody was hurt. Given the number of trips the train made over the weeks time and the higher track speed then, I'm surprised nobody was injured during the festival