August 20, 2025 • 54 mins
All aboard! 🚂 This week on The Silverwood Show Podcast, we sit down with Train Maintenance Lead, Quincy Saunders, to uncover the fascinating history and legacy of our 1915 Steam Engine Train. From the incredible work it takes to keep this classic beauty running, to the stories it carries through generations, Quincy gives us a behind-the-scenes look at one of Silverwood’s most iconic attractions. Whether you’re a train enthusiast or just love a good park tradition, this episode will give you a whole new appreciation for Engine No. 7.
PLUS, we call this week's Loyal Listener with free tickets and a chance to win $75 in Silverwood Cash! You could be next. Sign up here.
PLUS, we call this week's Loyal Listener with free tickets and a chance to win $75 in Silverwood Cash! You could be next. Sign up here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm ready to ready Freday silver Come tied up fun
thrills that'll make.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Come tied up fun s, Come tied up fun.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Well, hey there, welcome to this week's episode of The
silver Wood Show podcast. What are you guy going about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm just reading the notes for up. What is going
on with your mic Oh? My goodness?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You fixed it? Is it not fixed? Okay?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well we can run with that. It's just never looked
like that. What does it look like off to the side.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Go ahead, Yeah, I have no idea. Once again, i'm
fighting with my microphone. I'm your host, Sarah Jean. This
is my co host Jordan, and we are here to
talk trains today. Yes, once we get past my blubs, it's.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
All about the train. That train, Yeah, the train.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yes, the historic iconic engine number seven. Because I made
a mistake and that was hilarious. I don't know that
i've ever hot you in.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Ah, that was weird.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I don't know where your brain went there. So maybe
when you do your draft later, if there's anybody that's
number nine, maybe that's like the number. It was like
your brain telling you that's that's where it's at. But yeah,
we've got Quincy. Uh, he is our train lead, our
maintenance lead for the train, and he's going to come
in and tell us all the things you didn't know that.
(01:22):
I didn't know that. Even Jordan didn't know, which is rare.
Jordan knows everything. No, no, sometimes just not what numbers.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I don't just forget the number of the train.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah. I didn't write park pulse on here for some reason.
Should we go to the park polse park park pulse?
We should? Okay, so what's pulsing?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, we need to make a correction. Yeah, from the
previous podcast. Yes, disregard disregard scary Wood's opening date. Yes,
because Scaryo's opening date now is October third.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I mean y'all wanted another weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, so we we're open the third, fourth, and fifth
as opening we can. And that is also the weekend
that season passolders can save ten dollars on their tickets
by purchasing them at the gate, and that is the
only time you can purchase at the gate.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, which was a question that I've
seen on social media a couple of times. So there's
that answer. It's also going to be my media night
for my media correct on the third, the third Friday,
the third Friday, the third and now Silverwood last day.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Last day is the twenty eighth, twenty eighth, twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, so we apologize for all of that. And I
know sometimes things happened last night around here. We are
at theme park, so sometimes it's a circus.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We made we made it. We made it change.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So we made it change, funny enough, that's how we
originally had it, so it didn't like in our minds.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, it was like a week and a half of
change an hour back.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, it's easier this way, Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And so now we have fourteen nights of Scarywood and
not eleven, so.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
We couldn't keep yeah, bigger batter, scarier monsters away.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, and I guess I guess that is a point
because we haven't mentioned the updated Haunt because last week
just talked about tickets.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, so let's talk about Scary one.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
A little bit. Yeah, because we're gonna have more episodes
on those.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah for sure, But might as well give them
a little tea because tickets are on sale now.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Tickets are on sale, so definitely buy them early because
they do sell out.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yes, they're limited, and this is date specific, so not
like the Silverwood season your scary would tickets are date specific,
So make sure that you know when you want to
go and get those tickets. Those Saturdays probably go really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Saturdays are definitely especially as you get closer to Halloween.
The more occupancy that comes to the park, the more
people that want to visit. Because it's later in the seasons,
people feel more like it's Halloween. Yeah. Last year we
started at the end of September and we have one
so we have one less weight weekend this year, and
(03:53):
so come early. I think that's always the tip is
come early.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yep, and enjoy come early. Say it's going to be baker,
bigger and badder, batter that's our theme this year. We've
had some hints. I did see that one of our
news stations Kick So I did do a little uh
tease based off of our social media trying to figure
out what that hint was. And I think people pretty
(04:18):
much know I.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Was going to say. I was like, it wasn't much
of a hint.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It was kind of just telling it because it says
the swine, which was our new haunt last year, is
bigger and badder this year.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, which hints at.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
It doesn't mean that pig Mama is getting any bigger.
She's reached her maximum capacity for her house. But the bigger,
and especially after our year under her bell exactly, I
hope y'all are ready for pig Mama. She's gonna love
that we're talking about her right now. Can I tell
them what she does in her day job. She's a baker,
(04:50):
pig baker. She's a pig baker. She makes the most
incredible cookies of any swine that I've ever tasted. Their cookies,
which is none but one.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Of the one y.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So good. Yeah, So she's just let's just say, the
persona is really funny to see it from. It's very
one ankle for the next. Yeah, kind of not.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Really, we know it's we all know it's under there.
But I mean, just to jump on. What is included
in this bigger and badder upgrade with the swine is
last year of the swine. Well we'll touch on this
more details we get closer. But was a true maze
where people could choose their path. That caused a ton
of bottlenecks, and it caused us to It was hard
(05:33):
to staff because you might go one way and you
might not see a lot of people. The other way
was where the people. So we're taking that concept and
like making it more of a unified pathway. But there
are still open areas where you can choose which way
you go, but it goes to.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
One direction up on the same spot and path.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
But we also have three new houses that we're going
to be added to the Swine that you'll be able
to walk through an experience, and so we'll touch on
what those entail in the future episode.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, Yes, and I can't wait. I'm just so ready.
I may have spent like an hour in bed last
night looking at Halloween decorations on Amazon. Leg for your office, no,
for my house. My office is already ready. I got
the bag I left today. I am just totally prepared.
But yeah, it's it's time to start decorating. I can't
wait any longer. Okay, So it's started happening.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, And then the other pulse would be we are
coming up on the end of the Boulder Beach.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Can you believe there's only two more weekends?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Two more weekends of Bolder Beach?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Come out.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Use those tickets that you have purchased or those comp
tickets that you have earned the red arrived. Those do
have blackout dates on the Saturday and Sunday Labor Day,
but come out because after the first of September, no
more water park.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's crazy, which is we just started.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We literally just had dry run. I feel it's so
strange to me. And yeah, on that last weekend Coaster Classic,
there's a reel up that was posted today. You can
check out some details on that and what that entails. Yeah,
we're drawn to a click coming close of summer. So,
like Jordan said, make sure to use your tickets and
(07:11):
get to the park before summer slips away.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It can be gone. Yeah, it doesn't wait for you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No, it doesn't wait for you, for ask or anybody.
So let's head on into the beil train whal train.
All right, more great questions this week. I had a
couple that I just had to to touch on because
they were funny. So but let's start with mister Patrick Jones.
Patrick had a couple questions. First off, what sort of
(07:37):
community involvement and outreach does Silver would do in North Idaho?
And I thought that was good leading into our community
appreciation weekends.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So go ahead, Jordan, Well, there's a lot. It's hard,
it's hard to h it's hard to quantify all of it. Specifically,
for September, the last three weekends of Silverwood, four dollars
of each ticket goes to help our local food ba
and so because of guests that come through and we
are able to donate a good check to to each
(08:09):
food bank in our local area. And so that's always
fun to do. That's one of my favorite days of
the of the year. And then we have Canopy Village,
which we support with the train and for those who
ride the train, we're not just taking your money for tips. Yeah,
it is going, it is going. All of it goes
to Canopy Village.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And then we got Dynamite. Dan is not using it
for a college fund, I promise, So no, he's not
not happening, but he is giving it to these kids
so that maybe they can do something great. And yeah,
so those are a couple things. And then amongst all
of that, I know that obviously we've helped out with
local schools, helping them to build new facilities, and there's
(08:50):
there's a lot of things that we're involved in and
that we sponsor or things like that, and this community
is so incredibly important to sell wood into our founder
and his family, and we're a staple here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, So we definitely don't want to like we don't
we don't want to live on an island and I've
heard that from Garrett.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
This is not anyelid.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
We need to We have a community that we want
to help out and bring along with us.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, And I can tell you, even after so many
years in radio, the sense of community I get working
here is incredible. It's more so than being in an
industry where technically that's what it was supposed to be,
you know what I mean. And so there's it's it's
a it's a beautiful thing around here. So make sure
that you come and come during community appreciation weekends because
it's for a good cause, and make sure to donate
(09:39):
on the train for those kiddos at Canopy Village. So
that's a good question, but Patrick wasn't done. He also
wanted to know how early people should show up at
the park for Scary Wood Early early.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, Yeah, so Scarywood gates open at seven. Unless it's
going to be a busier night than we opened earlier,
you definitely want to be one of the first ones
the gates to get straight to whatever attraction or ride
you want to get to first. So with that being said,
if you were here by six, in scan tickets by
(10:14):
six point thirty, yeah you're doing pretty good. Okay, but
on some of those, like Saturdays, you definitely want to
be closer to six.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, definitely, I agree. So there's your answer. What time
in the parking lot would you say, in the parking lot?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Be in the parking lot by six?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, there you go. There's your answer. Patrick, who also
wanted to tell us, can I can I read this
on air?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah? Ahead, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So the last podcast was hilarious because the commercial that
was running was for pest control and you guys had
a fly infestation in the recording, so I had to
include that because I thought that was so funny. So Patrick,
I'm glad you enjoyed our little chaos. Luckily it's not
as bad today.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I just have one.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, there's been one that's buzzing around that's super annoying.
But aside from that, I don't know where.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
They're laying on your face.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That just lap me at all this episode. So thank
you for that. Patrick, Thank you so much for listening
as well. Ernest Wick wants to know what's the distance
from the front gate to the water park. Do you
know this?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I don't know this.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
We need to go out there and do your little
step thing. Yeah we should walk in, Yeah we should.
I mean it's.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I mean, what do you what do you think like
a like a quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
A mile from the front gate to the water park?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Do you think it's less than a quarter a mile? Amanda?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Probably last a quarter mile?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, I'm just trying to think of a like a
track laid out.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, flat flat, That's what I do in my head too.
And I'm glad he didn't ask the parking lot because
that would be a completely different story. Yeah, that's than
a quarter mile. I'm going to stick with that local
measure it and we'll update Ernest on the next episode. Okay, Amanda,
will you remind us to do that?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, please remind us?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Remember? Okay, Eileen Roman, she thinks she's silly. She wants
to know is it actually fun working there? Or do
you guys get bored after a while? And I left
so hard, like we work at a theme park? When
is it going to get boring? It's boring that the
one word never is boring. I'll tell you that for
(12:13):
ever ever. So I had to laugh at that. So, no, Eileen,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Get us fun.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But it's never boring, never borning. That definitely. Somebodies are
super crazy and some are a little slower, but never boring.
But never boring. I mean, I can't even think of
a boring day. So so Eileen, come work for us,
Come and check it out for yourself. I am ready
to call it a loyal listener. So if you guys don't
know how to do this, if you want to be
(12:41):
a loyal listener for your chance to win tickets, sign
up silver with Themepark dot com, Slash podcast and we
could be calling you like we're going to be calling
this week's winner. So give it up, spin, we have
a winner, all right. This week we are calling winner
number two six to six. Let's get them on the phone. Hello, Hey, Rob,
(13:13):
this is Sarah, Jean and Jordan calling from the Silverwood
Show podcast here at Silverwood Theme Park. How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Good?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Good? Hey? Guess what you are this week's loyal listener
And so we've got a pair of tickets for you
to come to Silverwood this season. Oh that's so cool,
or next season it's getting difficult. But that's not all Rob.
Are you ready for a little bonus offer? Of course?
(13:41):
All right, if you're willing to play a short little
game with us, you could win upwards to seventy five
dollars in silverwood cash you down, all right, okay, Right,
We're gonna play true or false with you. So it's
super simple. You have a fifty percent chance of getting
it correct. I'll give you a statement, let me know
if you think it's true or false. If you get
it right, you get five dollars. If not, we'll just
move on to the next one. And then at the end,
(14:03):
Jordan has a little SoundBite he's going to play for
you of a ride for your chance to win fifty dollars.
All right, sound good, Okay, let's get things started. True
or false? The sections in Boulder Beach are named after
different flowers. That would be false. Yes, it's nice. I
(14:25):
like that, all right, So Idaho gems obviously, okay, true
or false? Silverwood is open rain or shine that would
be true. And he's got ten dollars in the bank.
Nice job, Rob, nice job, Rob Hey. That rhymes okay,
onto numbers.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I never heard that before.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Corkscrew is originally from Florida. That's false, Rob, you are
on it. He's been hitting the good buttons so many
times it's not even working anymore. Okay, So fifteen dollars
in the bank. Onto the next one. Panic plunge drops
you one hundred and twenty feet. Ooh, we stumped him.
(15:07):
Oh maybe true?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Wow that guy, good job, you're on fire.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You're on fire. Twenty dollars in the bank. One more
true or false before we head into the SoundBite. Silverwood
used to be an aerodrome.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
True.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
There you go, five or five? Maybe you should hosts?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, no kidding, Okay, twenty five dollars in the bank.
Go ahead, Jordan.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Okay, So this next is a new SoundBite. We haven't
used it yet because the last episode someone someone actually
guess correctly.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So this is a new one.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It's a ride either in Silverwood or Boulder Beach. It's
just a little clip. I'm gonna play it for you
right now. So here it comes. Maybe what ride do
you think that is?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh? It sounded like water. Is that eagle hunt? That is?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That is a good guest.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I don't even know what it is, Rob, So but
you still got twenty five dollars in Silverwood cash. You
got a pair of tickets and I'll give you a
call or a text after the podcast is over and
we'll discuss whether you want them for the season or
next and how to pick them up. All right, awesome,
thank you so much, Thank you long and for knowing
so much about Silverwood. Great. Yeah, so have a great day, Rob,
(16:31):
thank you. Okay, bye. Rob's a pro.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Rob's a pro. Robs a pro pro. They also might
have been a little easy.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Well, yeah, I know, I'm running.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Out of rain or shine. Well, I guess that's a
question that we do get a lot, So.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Thank god, I get it all the time, and that's
kind of how I get these sometimes is what I've
been seeing the most in terms of that week, and
so it kind of helps me to answer some questions
without having to deliberately answer them. Okay, so, who's ready
to talk trains?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I am?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I am too too into the big drop drum. Well,
welcome back. We are here with this week's special guest.
We've got Quincy Saunders in the house and you are
the lead train maintenance. Is that your title? How do
you say your title?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Maintenance maintenance Okay, I was almost there, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He basically read his name tag train.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is that why so that we can figure we can
figure it out? Okay, well, already knew that was an
inside scoop for you. I'm learning something. But we are
here with Quincy, and Quincy is the train professional. He's
what keeps that train a moving every single day throughout
the winter, all season long to make all this stuff
(17:53):
literally all things train. And we know that we've got
a lot of guests or a lot of guests, a
lot of listeners soon to be guess maybe ye that
are completely obsessed with the train. I mean, how could
you not be?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And this is going to start it at all.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, this is going to be a really fascinating episode
for you guys to kind of learn a little bit
about that train and how Silverwood kind of got it
start right. But first let's get to know Quincy a
little bit. So Quincy, tell us about yourself. How long
you've worked here, any other positions that you've done, and
if you like a certain ride the best or a
certain food the best, A little bit about you?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Noight, Yeah, I started here in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I came off of the oil field slope actually up
in North Alaska. Well, and they basically told me up there, Hey,
you're going to go ahead and leave your family for
six months and work up here. And I said, nah. Now,
so I had a friend that worked here and he
said interviews. So I came and interviewed and started working
with the train. And I've only worked with the train. Yeah,
I'll do special odd ball jobs for maintenance, but for
(18:52):
the most part, strictly the trains what I've been doing
now for the past five years.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And the train is your baby.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh yes, and you have you didn't have any how
much experience with trains have you had before?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Well, specifically trains. Nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But as far as pressure goes, everything in the oil
field was pressure related. That's so directing pressure to go
to certain places. So a lot of what I did
there translated over. But as far as what I knew
about steam engines, my guess is there's less than three
hundred people in the United States that work on steam
engines at the rate that me and the crew do,
and so it wasn't a lot. A lot of what
I had to learn was hit the ground running. I
(19:25):
had had to learn it from YouTube videos. There's a
bunch of old books in the train barn. One of
them is written in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Yeah, so I've got these old books that I have
to be really delicate about where I've learned a lot
of the information from.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
We need to digitize, we do.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
We're talking either that or you need to just literally
live forever or we're in trouble.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
So yeah, it makes it makes sense. But the English
is just almost one hundred years old, so it's different,
a little different. Yeah, definitely a little different.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It's cool, it's it's surreal sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I mean, what a fun job, for sure. So when
you're not on the train, what do you do here
at Silverwood? Like for fun? Is there a particular ride
that you love or.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, i'd say that Stunt Pilot when it came out,
I was most excited about that, and I still like
it and I don't have to work on it, so
I think I get in just an enjoyment that take
just things.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
A little bit right, absolutely, Okay, And your favorite food
at the park.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Honestly probably the chicken at the.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Not Utter barbcue Chuck way, So okay, I can agree
with that. Okay, Okay, So there's a little inside scoop
on Quincy. But let's kind of get into it. What
does it take on a daily basis to keep a
nineteen fifteen steam engine train running?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Okay, Well, every morning two or three of us my crew.
I couldn't do this without my crew. I've got an
amazing crew. I've got two guys work with me, Chad
and Thomas. But every morning we get in check to
make sure there's nothing written on the board that the
engineers have discovered. Yeah, then we go through our daily
list of making sure that it's filled with water, we
make sure that it's got all the right chemicals, and
(21:00):
we make sure that it's got all the oil is
filled back up, and we have to grease it every
single day, and then we have to go through the inspection.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Part of it.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So I've got a checklist that I go through, and
I go through and meticulously check each thing to make
sure that nothing's gone wrong with it. And then after
that we pull it out and get it oiled. And oh,
we have to do the same thing for the train
cars and the track too, so and then we have
to pull it out after we oil the like the axles,
(21:27):
to make sure it's good to go every single day
that happens, and it's just a gravity feed that just
kind of drops onto it all day. The engineers also
have to do it once a day too.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
In the middle of the day, we.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Pull out to the oil shed and we end up
getting the fuel, which is reclaim motor oil. That's what
the train runs on now, is reclaim motor oil. That's
the most common question we get up there in the
front of the train.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Is this real?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
This runs off of diesel now, right, But it's it's
all real.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
It's all the exact same stuff, except rather than coal
now it's reclaim motor oil.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
And then we get that filled up and we go
and we latch up to the train cars and that
gets another inspection to make sure all the brakes are
actuating correctly, and then we pull it to the depot.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
This is like an airport, like you see them doing
the checklist on the airplane before you take off. I mean,
this is a lot more than I think. It's like, yeah, okay,
you know, I know, but it's like the checklist that
the pilots have to do before they take off. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's intensive. What okay you said, dirty job? Yes, yeah,
(22:32):
definitely a dirty job.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Pretty clean right now? Yeah, I try. I try to
stay clean because of this today.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Okay, okay, yeah, I think it's the cleanest I've ever seen,
always covered and train whatever. Yeah, yeah for sure. Okay,
you mentioned water. How much water does the train hold?
Speaker 4 (22:51):
The uh tender holds two thousand gallons and the boiler
holds roughly five hundred. Wow, and then we have to
fill it up several times a day, the tender several
times a day, and the field the boilers several times
a run in order to make sure we have enough
water in.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
There so it runs out well.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So that's what happens like out of the Silver Mine
for the show, you guys have to is that a part?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah, So when we get to the robbery, we are
down low on water. We're towards the bottom of our sideglass,
and we have to get all of our water back
up to the certain mark. We have a marked that
marks that have this much water when we leave the station,
have this much water when we leave the robbery, because
if you have too much, the trail on right, and
(23:33):
if you have too little, the train will stop being
a train if you're runner the water. When we get there.
We need to know roughly how much time we're going
to be there. And we've just learned the show, so
we know, Okay, get this much water by this part
of the show, get this much water by this south
part of the show, get this much water, and this
much pressure because we have to have a certain amount
of pressure leaving the station. We want to have a
(23:55):
certain amount of pressure leaving the train the silver Mine.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I never knew that the silver Mine was really at Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We but we do run some of the shows that
don't stop there.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So how does that change things?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah, so if we we know what we're running, we
can change that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And so we'll draw water after the trustle, will draw
or across the trustle, and then we won't draw water
again until we get to the silver Mine. However, if
the show is shorter, we have to draw water two
times before the robbery, and then we have to draw
it again right before or right after Gary's Corner if
you depending on how much pressure you have. Yeah, and
(24:34):
so it changes the script that way. If it's like
really rainy and they tell us, oh, we're not going
to do the show. That's why we request to know
by the end of the Trustle, because otherwise we're going
to be kind of fighting the water and the pressure.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So make sense if we have a script that we
try to stick to.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And if you've ever been lucky enough to get on
one of the train rides where we're going off scar
two miles an hour up the Trustle, that's because we've
either slipped on a little bit of grease we have
to used the track in order to make sure that
doesn't get worn down, yeah, or somebody unfortunately wasn't paying attention,
which is more more rare.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Than having decrease. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
And then it just goes slow, and then we're in
focus mode trying to just get up that trustle, and
so sometimes the actors have to kind of flesh out there, do.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Some mad live and yeah, Jordan just got off the train.
I did just get off the train, yeah, Or should
I say I.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Just robbed the train and got a lot of money,
did you, well, Canopy Village got a lot of.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Money, yes, yes, but good job for cant so Yeah.
So Jordan's literally.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Freshsh fresh off the train. I had like, look dishovel,
my hair is almost up.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I thought you were going to come and dressed as dynamite.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Dan, No, it's too hot to do that.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
She disappointed in you, right, Okay, so we kind of
talked about that. What would you say is like the
biggest challenge in maintaining the train it's one.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Hundred and ten years old.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't get any part of
that at AutoZone or at NAPA, right. So Luckily we've
got amaze support crew here. You know, we've got fabricators
here that can help us make things. We've got the
machinists here that can machine some of the parts in house,
and everything else we have to get through vendors that'll
come a third party machinists like so Northwestern Machine shout
(26:14):
out to them, most of our parts that need to
be fabricated. We show them one hundred and ten year
old piece that's cracked or broken, and we're like, eh,
can you do something with this?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And they go yeah, but it can't be this way anymore.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Things have changed so slowly as the years go on,
things have been replaced that need to be Like, for instance,
the caps on the end of the cylinders. Just throughout
being one hundred and ten years old, they developed a
hairline fracture and it was cast iron cast seals, so
you can't weld on that. Yeah, so train's got to
(26:48):
keep running, but we can't run with that anymore. So
we have to give them this piece and they say, well,
we have to do these corners different and it has
to be made out of this material. So from two
years ago that piece being about ninety five pounds to
get it on and off of there to being like
one hundred and thirty five pounds get off.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So, oh geez, So you are doing a workout too. Okay,
So we're working out and we're fixing the train. What
happens in the winter, So.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
That's when we take it all apart.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Like if we find out anything that's wearing out during
the season, I can't work on this thing. I can't
do everything with this train when it's hot, Like right now,
there's water in the boiler and when I come in
it's still hot. If I had to replace a valve,
it's a huge deal where I have to come in
at like two in the morning in order to bleed
it down to a certain amount of pressure. So if
anything's wearing out and not broken, we're gonna wait till
(27:33):
we go to weekends where it can cool down, replace
all these things.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So we set up a list of all these things that.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Need to be replaced when it can be cooled down,
and then we take apart a lot of the train.
We end up measuring like the inside of the cylinders
to make sure how much where we've got going on.
Measure the wheels, find out what's going on with them.
Measure all the spindles on the wheels to make sure
that those aren't getting worn down. Any parts that need
to be rebuilt, we redo that. And then the train
(27:59):
car are there are they need the most attention. We're
constantly repairing them. You know, those aren't one hundred and
ten years old, but there would. Yeah, and so there's
they've they've all the wooden floors and stuff is all
winter were repairing all those and we have five train
cars and roughly five months, so we try to do
one train car a month if it.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Works out that way, Yeah, yeah, if you can.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And then oh and then of course after silver Wood closes,
we go into track work season really hard.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Okay, yeah, so you're working on the actual railroad tracks
as well. What does that entail?
Speaker 4 (28:33):
So if we don't have an excavator, it is literally
pick out the gravel around it, grab it with tongs,
through great effort, pull it out, clear out the base.
We've actually started doing something new these past few years.
We were actually wiping away the old original base and
putting in new ballast underneath that. That way we have
better drainage, and so we're sliding that back in. We
(28:54):
have to gauge it, make sure everything's good. We're trying
to make sure the track is level and straight, and
then we will spike it down and then go on
to the next spot. Yeah, and it's a never ending
If I were to get done with every single tie here,
it would take us long enough to by the time
done with that, you start over at the other one
(29:14):
to eat it more.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah. Okay, so literally that is a constant.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
How many are you doing a year?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I think our best year when we had a lot
of people on it, I think we did like three
hundred ties, but we had I had a big crew.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Helping me at that point.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I'd say on average we probably get about one hundred maybe,
but it slowed down also when we started redoing their
road base.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sure so and how so three hundred ties that sounds
like a lot, But how spread out are those Some of.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Them will be you have one right here by the
coyote that's worn out, and then you have another one
over here it's twenty feet over here, and another one
that's three hundred feet over there. But we're also trying
to do as these sections go bad, one tie after
another all the way through, and we'll get like sixty
of those, and then we'll go the next area that's got.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That, and those are spaced out like a half Yeah,
got a foot I would have guessed that.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Nice job, Jordan. Good Yes, for the record, good job,
Jordan knew that.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's just, you know, the only reason why I know
that is because I've walked the whole tracks and it's
like a step every time, and sometimes it's like, oh,
that's a little bit less than a normal step.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
And hopefully with the next five years they'll all be
exactly uniform. But you've got over the course of silver
Wood and so many different guys doing track work. Now
we've got a kind of uniform and it'll continue to
be that way.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah. Yeah, that's so crazy because obviously the average person
who's working on a train isn't also working on the tracks,
you know, so you are literally from one end of
the spectrum to the other. Yeah, to this train. What
everybody talks about the steam engine trains like, I mean,
they're they're very special, right, What what makes everybody talks
about them? Well, I mean everybody goes crazy over ours,
(30:52):
you know, it's so special. It's such a centrified thing,
you know. And what I don't know trains personally. I
have a lot of friends who were train fanatics. But
what makes a steam engine train like so special versus say,
any other train that used to run back then?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Well, they were all steam engines back then.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Yeah, it's a when you think about it, like how
far away it was in history. It's amazing technology like
we figured out like, for instance, if you take one
measurement of water and turn it into steam, it turns
into seventeen hundred of the same measurement. So one drop
of water turns into seventeen hundred drops of steam oka
and so you get a lot of power out of there.
(31:32):
And so it's amazing that we found out that you
can get so much power just from heating water, and
the strength that you can do with fire and water
is incredible that people came up with this one hundred
something years ago.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And this train was going from one side of the
country to the other.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
No a Rika Palisade.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
It was working on a sideline for a silver mine,
and so she was a workhorse originally.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So she actually was a Silver Mayan train.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah. Yeah, Oh, I.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
It's really cool that Urica Palisade.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
That place has got a book written about it, and
one of the engineers has it, okay, and it tells
a little history about the train, and uh, when they
first got it, everybody was really excited about Engine seven
because it looked sleek. But she famously slips, and like
I said earlier, we might be slipping on the track.
So we see in this book that she's famous for slipping.
When they were working, I was like, hey, wait a second,
that's what I was doing. Yeah, And then they actually
(32:31):
retired it. They were sitting, we're done with this, so
they took they took her tender from her, and they
ended up putting her outside and like you stay over there, train.
And then there was a fire that claimed all their
trains except for Engine seven, and so they dusted her back,
and in a weird way, we have Engine seven a
day because people didn't like Engine seven back then, and
(32:52):
so it's a blessing that she didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Redemption you guys. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Also in that book, I'd have to look up the
title of the book again, but in that book there's
a picture of engine seven on its side.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Oh, because it slipped, because on its side.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It came off on the side.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
And when I first started working here, there's a part
underneath the train called the wishbone and it's it's cocked
really bad, and you had to take it off every
once in a while all the check stuff. And I
was like, how did this happen? How is this cock
like this? Yeah, and we get it repaired and we
get it all fixed. The Northwest Machine took forever to
fix it, and they got it all repaired. And then
we found that picture of that book.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Like that's it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I got that.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And yeah, if you think about that name of the book,
let me know, and I'll like let the audience know
and put it that, you know, because that's kind of
any I didn't know there was a book about it.
So have you read it?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
No, Well, maybe we need I've done some research on
the train, just because it is what it is, you know,
and like, yeah, Eureka palisades and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
But it is interesting how spar is that? So how
far was it traveling?
Speaker 4 (33:55):
I can't remember. It wasn't very far. It was maybe
a couple of miles or so. Yeah, it wasn't. It
wasn't huge favor If I'm wrong, it's not by much
off okay, because it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Was it bringing miners into the mining area and back
to town.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
To my understanding was Engine seven would take the ore
from the inside.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Of the they back.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Up the train cars into the entrant of them, aren't
mind loaded up, and then that would take it back
to the mainline. So she just went back and forth
in order to get the ore back to the mainline.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Interesting, that's so crazy. I didn't know any of the see,
so I'm learning things. This is which means our audience
is learning things, because unless they're like Jordan, they know everything.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
But yeah, I got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, So well what else here? Gosh?
Why do you think in your own personal opinion that
this train is such a part of the iconic experience
at Silverwood?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I always call it the face of Silverwood. It's what
people come.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
They want to see, it's like what they see on
the pictures when they come to visit. It's the first
thing that people see other than the carousel when they
when they come in the UH in the park and
people always come up and they want to tell us
a little tidbit of information they found out about it.
And then, like I said, the uh first question everyone asks,
is this real? And then yes, it's it's real. And
(35:10):
where's that steam come from? Steam comes from the spire
that we have, But yeah, it's I think it's kind
of people are surprised to see a steam engine. I
know there's lots of them, but there's not as many
as anything else you see.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And you don't see him at theme parks there's a few. Yeah,
coolest is the coolest, right right.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
That's how we got in, Yes, in the mid in
the bidding war at Hera's auction in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
So how did she end up there?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I think there's a museum. I think she was in
a museum.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah, if I'm remembering right, it was that after she
was done working, she went to a museum, and then
after the museum she went to a casino owner and
he's the one who actually put all the brass on.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It, that's heros.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, And so when he passed away, his wife just
auctioned it off, so she wasn't obsessed with trains like
he was.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
So and that's where Gary found.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It, okay, and he went ahead.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So up upstairs, and I have a booklet of that auction.
Everything that's like would be for sale for that auction,
and engine number seven is circled and it said and
it says like there's a I think I said mine
or ours question mark or something like that.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Like Gary, it's the actual book.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, okay, can we take a picture of that post?
I probably can't.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, but it's pretty cool because I mean he originally
didn't really go there for that that. I think he
went there to get the trimotor airplane. So and then
there's other things that he had circled, but that was
one and.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
He come home with anything else, A bunch of rail,
lots of rail.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think he got the trimotor too, Yeah, but yeah,
that lots of rail. And then there's pictures of them,
him and his kids and stuff working on the railroad
and lay in the track and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So so Gary actually was out there like laying the track.
That's so cool.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, they said the old engineers when I first started,
they said that even though Gary hasn't driven it in
a while, they said he could drive the crud out
of the train all the way around.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah. Oh yeah, And I've seen his granddaughter do it.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Day.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, so that's always kind of cool whenever she fills
in or whatnot.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
How fast can it go?
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Well, there's a rule that I heard that you can
you take the diameter of the wheel and you subtract
a few numbers off of that, and that's roughly the
mouth per hour. So thirty two inches is with the
wheel in theory, could go twenty eight twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
If you're pushing it. We will not go that fast.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
I work on the track and as we're going that
fast in the track, it's it's damaging the track. I'm
sure we've never taken that fast. I think they said
during the Scary Wood days when it was running, they
would do about fourteen and so we know that it
can handle that.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah, what is it doing now?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
We try to stick around eighty. It's kind of changes
from time to time.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It's kind of good for the show. It's good for
the tr track.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Sometimes we get fire lit under us to go ten
and that's we can do that. But like I said,
the faster we go, the more the track goes. There's
actually a few times where if you see that the
engineers hit that the tightest corner after the after the
silver mine, if they hit it at eight miles per hour,
you can actually go to the edge of the ties
and you can see that there's a gap between the
(38:23):
edge of the TI and earth.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So I can tell when my engineers have have gone
a little.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
We're supposed to hit that at six or lower, and
so if they hit it at eight, it actually actually moves.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So yeah, it's interesting being on the train and like
acting on the train because you can tell when it's
just two miles an hour difference.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, if you're like, whoa, we're.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Moving, we're cutting that line and we're moving to the
next time we're cruising through this area.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah. Do you ever fall over like when you're no,
not really, Yeah, you keep your balance, you get your
train legstad train legs. It's like legs. Okay, okay, any
other questions Jordan before I enter with more.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I mean, well, I guess on the front half
of the train versus the back half of the train,
because you're on a I don't think people realize you're
on really a constant, steady inclimb from where to where
I know the Trustle is probably the max peak of
that spot.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Trustle is the highest spot.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
And when I was a kid, when I rode this thing,
I had had no idea there was a grade. So
I'm assuming a lot of the guests don't know either.
And the first time I drove it, he said, hey,
get a little bit faster for this hill, And I said, oh,
what hill. Yeah, He's the whole thing is hill. And
so it starts at the very beginning of the buffalo
pen is what is the low spot before then we're
kind of going downhill before then, and then we have
(39:39):
to be getting to the right speed, uh. And then
it's a gradual increase from the beginning of the Buffalo
all the way through the valley and then to the
top of the Trustle, And we have to hit that
correctly in order to get all the way up to
the top.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
If we hit it.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Far too slow, then we're slipping and we're fighting to
go all the way up, dropping a lot of sand
for traction, and if we're going too fast, like if
we're doing like, if we happen to hit it at ten,
often it'll slow down. But if you're got fully loaded
guests on there and you try to go from ten
down to eight, you might miss that go all the
way to six and you're not getting back to eight
if you have a full long So that's sometimes why
(40:15):
we'll be going faster than we anticipated up the hill,
because it's like, well, it's either this or it's four.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah. Yeah, So the things that you would never know
that were happening behind the scenes. How many people think
that it's just like going around in circle? Yeah, you
just said sands, I have no idea. Where's like, where
do you keep it?
Speaker 4 (40:32):
If you look at the side profile of the train,
we've got three domes on there. The middle dome is
the big one that directs the steam to the drive,
and the other two are is the sander domes, and
those just have brass tubes that come down and drop
sand and you'd be surprised you can feel it. I
don't know if you would know it what you're looking for,
but if you drop just a little bit of sand
on there, the whole thing rumbles under your feet, and
you can feel it on the train cars. So when
(40:53):
I'm riding with my family and we're going up the hill,
I can feel the rumbling. Oh well, they're dropping sand.
So it's a thing that I've kind of been trained
to feel. And Chad, Thomas and I we all are
aware of all the noises in the rumbling, and whenever
anything new makes a slightly different noise, all three of
us like, yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Sound like that.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Also, you mentioned that you wrote it when you were
a kid.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I did.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, little did you know as a child.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
I came here when I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, oh my gosh, and you wrote the so what
did you do? You remember what you thought about it?
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Then I suppose I shouldn't say this as the train guy,
but I remembered I had never wrote a roller coaster
in my life, and I remember it's just adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline,
and then ride around two, you know, when you're digesting
your lunch. When we rode the train and I was like, ooh,
this was this was a lot more calm than I expected.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Yeah, I love the train. I like working on the train,
but I'm going in brown. I was twelve. I should
have started with the train and then gone.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
To the exactly. It's actually a good I mean a
big change in speed there for sure, now that I
know it's going eight miles an.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Hour, eight miles an hour to sixty miles an hour
a little different.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
It's a little bit of a different there. So are
there fun facts? Are there anything maybe that people don't
know about the train that you'd be able to tell us,
maybe other things other than the dropping sand or.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Well, every time he talks, we're like, wait.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, give us more. We want more as far
as like tips for the guests you may or no,
just in general about the train, fun facts, maybe some
historical things, anything else that you might know.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
There are stories that you may have from just driving it.
Or winter, and.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Every single winter the track changes its location. We have
to go line and level. In the springtime, you'll notice
it's a lot more rougher, and then snow heaves or
ice heaves that feel up and then they come and
so you'll actually see that at the beginning of the
season train cars are moving a lot more than they
are now. And then as we find any spots that
are on level, we gotta do that a lot of
people don't know that that's the thing that happens because
(42:48):
that's just on ground out there. There's no cement foundations.
So wherever the ground's gonna move, the track's gonna move
with it. So that's a probably an unknown thing.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
How long does it take to prepare the train before
season starts for that first run?
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Oh, I mean we start getting really ready probably beginning
of April, end of March, and then it's just a
nervous wreck from there until I successfully go around the
track once.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Yeah, Because I've taken the whole thing apart and then
I'm putting it back together.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I'm like, okay.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
It's like if you were a kid and you were
to take apart your remote control and then you find
an extra component and a couple of screws. I'm always like, okay,
do I have everything? Everything's put back in there, and
then you start taking and you're listening for any noises.
So it takes us probably about month month and a
half before we're like ready to go, because there's like
in the winter time, it's tear everything apart, fix everything,
(43:39):
fix everything, and then somebody inevitably says, oh hey, it's
eight weeks still opening and you go, oh yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Well I can tell you from the marketing standpoint, that's
my favorite.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
That's signals. That's signals that the season is coming. When
we hear that train whistle for the.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
First time, and it's always the weather's starting to change.
And yeah, I miss having that to look out my window,
you know, in an off season, because that's my favorite
part is just seeing the train go by from my windows.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
So what about you have the plymouth.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Explain what the plymouth is to everybody who doesn't know
what that word means in terms of the train, even.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
I have no idea, Sarah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
And how you use that to help your process?
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Okay, So the plymouth, or we call it a tug too,
is a little diesel motor driven equipment that it can
actually can latch up to the front of the train. Yeah,
the green one with the yellow plow, it's got a
plow on it and we plow the winter every once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Just that crossing right there.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
We found that if we're trying to get our train
cars from where they're parked under tarps in the winter
time to the side of our train barn shop, then
we have to have a clear road, so we have
to make sure that gets cleared and that thing has
zero traction in the in the ice, and so yeah,
I in fact a quick story about that. I'm backing
(44:58):
up and I've got Chad and Thomas are there. They
digged up all the stuff, and I've got to go
over maybe about eight inches of snow and I'm going
as fast as i can, and if I can just
make to the crossing, we're gonna make it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I chickened out and I was like, I'm derailing. I
can feel it. I'm derailing. I wasn't.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
It was perfectly fine. I chickened out and lost all momentum.
And then Chad and Thomas like ah, we all three
got on there and dug underneath it with the snow.
During the season, if all goes well, we're barely using it.
We have to when we get in, we put a
propane heater in the engine and then it'll actually heat
it up to where we can drive out on its own.
(45:36):
If that heater happens to go out or one of
us doesn't catch that it goes out, we need to
be able to light the train with about fifty PSI
at the lowest. If we only have seventy five, we're
going to use about twenty five of that getting it out.
So we will go, oh shoot, we'll go grab the
engine with the tug pull it out.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
That way, we didn't waste any steam.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
We can still at our fire We use that to
move all the train cars around during the winter time.
If the engine were to break down, we could tote
with that. The engine never broken down, but if it did,
we could get it with that.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
And wait, the engine has never broken down.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
I mean as far as broken down, it's been an
issue where like we had one oil valve that came
loose on the NPT thread and they couldn't get the
oil valve open, and no, it did break it. It
didn't breakdown, but they were like, there's one more run left,
go put it away. And so I consider that the
closest thing we've had to break.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
It's pretty good well, and we just so everybody knows,
we do like during the preseason we go through, like
what would a train evacuation look like and make sure
that we do have that safety covered because there are
different spots where if it were to break down, it
would be a completely decently walk back to the depot
(46:51):
and so making sure that that is safe and that
even though we haven't had it, I think there was
maybe a Scary Wood night where we had to have
people walk back years ago before I don't remember when
that was, but before you, yeah, before you. But we
don't run it during Scary Wood either, and so I
think a lot of that wear and tear like you
talk about, like going faster speeds and all that probably
(47:12):
contributed to potentially needing to walk people back from I
think it was the Buffalo pen.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Okay, yeah, I wonder what happened there. I'll have to
get some more details.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
What about when the elephant blocked the tracks?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
That was a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
They had to walk back.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Who told us that, I don't remember an elephant.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
We had an elephant at the park when there was
a Z you here, yes, back in late eighties.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Was it Michelle?
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It might have been Michellechell or justin Yeah, yeah, So
they said that the elephant stood in front of the tracks.
I just didn't want to move. He was just like,
this is where I'm hanging out for now, and how
do you.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Move off between and the elephant?
Speaker 1 (47:49):
So I wonder how long they were there. I mean,
I doubt they had to walk because you're not going
to walk with an elephant.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Yeah, no, please stay on the train. Yeah there's an elephant.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Well the elephant wasn't like they used it and it
gave rides and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
He broke out at jail. He was he was on
a mission for he's not moving for some kind of rebellion.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
But yeah, what's your like favorite part of working on
the train.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
I mean, the easy answer is is driving the train.
It's it's still my favorite part. You know, working on
the whole train is cool, it's surreal and everything. But
it's usually around the time, right after we passed the trustle,
I'll be driving this and I go, this is I'm
driving a steam engine for money.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
This is cool, like.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Surreal, you know.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
That's that's that's probably it is my favorite thing and
probably the most cliche. But one thing I really like
about this too is like, h like I said, I've
I've got to do one job in the winter time
where I tear it all apart. I do one job
in the summertime where we drive it around, and then
I do one job in the fall while we're doing
exclusively track work. So I liked this job is constantly
like kind of changing its shades and it never gets
stale because you're always doing something new.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah. Yeah, does your family think you're super cool?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (48:59):
Yeah, got I've got little kids about eleven year old
to a seven month old. We got four kids, so
they they love, they love coming back.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah. Like how cool to be able to say my
dad drives the train.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
My dad works on the train.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
In fact, my daughter wreckon or remembered my phone number first,
so if we lost her, she would just say my
phone number. But we told my son, who didn't remember
remember my phone number.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Dad works on the train.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
He does, he.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Fixes the train, They'll find me.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
And so he's like, oh, okay, remember your radio number,
go call it called this number.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Let's see. Have you ever witnessed a magical or memorable
moment on the train over the years.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
I'd say, honestly, the wildlife whenever you see what I
was going to ask about, that's amazing, Like we uh,
there was an eagle ness that originally was pretty close
to the track before it was a dead tree.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
It fell down, but.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Those eagles would catch fish over there.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
And Gary's pond, and so you'd see them swoop down
catch a trout or whatever he's got stocked there, and
they would just fly away, and you're like, I'm driving
a train and I just saw it even.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Catch a fish like that.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Pretty cool. That's cool.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
We've seenoties out there, moose, elk, deer, an owl. There's
two owls that live over there on the back side
of this really yep.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
And then sasquatch. Sasquatches out there obviosually have some wild
bison out there.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
We actually had a neighbors bison escape onto the property
one time a few years back, and that was we're
just doing our track when we drive by and there's
on like, oh no, one of our buffalo is the
neighbor's buffalo.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
So my job that day was you just keep tabs
on that buffalo. So I'm like in the forest.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
And oh my god, the things you only see in
North Idaho, right, I mean, honestly, and let's talk about
the buffalo because I know that you kind of love
the buffalo, because I'll never forget talking to you that
day and your eyes lit up when you were like,
oh my gosh, there's number one hundred and keeps running
alongside the terrain. And we named her Century and all
of this. How many babies do we have?
Speaker 3 (50:53):
There's three babies.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Three babies, Okay, very nice. And do we still have
a runner he likes to run alongside the train?
Speaker 4 (50:58):
Yep? Yeah, she she he's the one that gets closest.
It seems to always be that same one. She got
a one hundred tag on her ear that's all worn out.
But she'll come to investigate us if we're working near
the track. And when I do my morning inspection, I'll
be on the four wheeler and I'll be looking at
the track and you'll see her come run up every
once in a while, and she's excited to see you,
and she'll she'll stay the closest. Sometimes the rest of
(51:18):
the hurd will run away, and she'll stay closer. And
in fact, Kat who takes care of the buffalo, When
I said, hey, I saw a buffalo it was running,
she goes, I bet it was one hundred, and I
was like it was yeah. And so she already has
a name for herself. Yeah, so she's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Cool, And I call her Century. It sounds prettier than
one hundred.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, yeah, I like it. Everybody look out for century
when Conry.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Yes, I've been. I haven't seen her run yet, so
I'm excited that at some point hopefully that will happen.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Oh, Jordan's ready with your inside scoop. Yeah, okay, are
you ready for this inside scoop? This is obviously an
ice cream truck, but you know that's her lead in.
But we want to know your super secret insider tip,
preferably maybe surrounding the train for any of our guests,
whether it be a new guest, an old guest, something
(52:11):
that you would tell them to make their experience even
more special.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:15):
So like what I tell my family or any of
the guests that I send this way and they're going
to ride the train, right, the first thing I tell
them is look at the schedule, because my kids always
want to ride the train first thing in the morning,
but that one's usually a yesteryear, which doesn't include the
whole show.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Yeah, And so I always tell them just take a
second look at the look at schedule. Make sure that
if you want to go on the show, you're on one,
because a lot of people won't know and they'll go.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Oh, I was on here for this time.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
Yeah, and we didn't get the robbery. And then also too,
the show is on the right side of the train.
When I tell people, if you want to witness the train,
be towards the middle of the train.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
If you don't want to get wet, don't sit in
the third car. Might sit on the right side of
the train.
Speaker 4 (52:52):
There's cool stuff on both sides of the train, but
you can see the show a little bit better. I'm
not right, Yep, probably the train car four where you're
close to the sho show.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
You're not turning around to look at it.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
So as far as my inside scoop is, there's there's
all our positions. Yeah, but the better positions are where
you can see the show.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
And if you want to get wet, trink car three
if you don't want to get wet four.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
One last question, though, who's your favorite actor in the
train robbery? M questions loaded answer Dynamite Dan for the way,
did you keep your guns handy today?
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Did you I didn't lose a gun?
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Okay? Did you do a backflip? I did a front
flip flip. Yeah, I've never done a backflip. That would
be crazy. Oh really, yeah, okay, just the difference. Yeah
all right, well that's let's wrap things up. Thank you
so much Quincy for hanging out with us today, and
we'll definitely get some clips to follow that for our listeners.
If you want to be the next loyal listener, make
(53:58):
sure to sign up at Silverwood themepark dot com slash podcast.
We could be calling you next. And that's a wrap
on this week's ride. Thanks for tuning in to the
Silverwood Show. If you had a blast to make sure
to subscribe, leave us a review, and share the fun
with your fellow thrill seekers. Got a question, story, or suggestion,
(54:18):
send it our way to podcast at silverwoodthemepark dot com
for a chance to be featured in our mail train segment.
Until next time, keep your hands and feet inside the
podcast and stay thrilling.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Come time.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
That fun
I'm ready to ready Freday silver Come tied up fun
thrills that'll make.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Come tied up fun s, Come tied up fun.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Well, hey there, welcome to this week's episode of The
silver Wood Show podcast. What are you guy going about?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I'm just reading the notes for up. What is going
on with your mic Oh? My goodness?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
You fixed it? Is it not fixed? Okay?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well we can run with that. It's just never looked
like that. What does it look like off to the side.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Go ahead, Yeah, I have no idea. Once again, i'm
fighting with my microphone. I'm your host, Sarah Jean. This
is my co host Jordan, and we are here to
talk trains today. Yes, once we get past my blubs, it's.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
All about the train. That train, Yeah, the train.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yes, the historic iconic engine number seven. Because I made
a mistake and that was hilarious. I don't know that
i've ever hot you in.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Ah, that was weird.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I don't know where your brain went there. So maybe
when you do your draft later, if there's anybody that's
number nine, maybe that's like the number. It was like
your brain telling you that's that's where it's at. But yeah,
we've got Quincy. Uh, he is our train lead, our
maintenance lead for the train, and he's going to come
in and tell us all the things you didn't know that.
(01:22):
I didn't know that. Even Jordan didn't know, which is rare.
Jordan knows everything. No, no, sometimes just not what numbers.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
I don't just forget the number of the train.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah. I didn't write park pulse on here for some reason.
Should we go to the park polse park park pulse?
We should? Okay, so what's pulsing?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, we need to make a correction. Yeah, from the
previous podcast. Yes, disregard disregard scary Wood's opening date. Yes,
because Scaryo's opening date now is October third.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I mean y'all wanted another weekend.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, so we we're open the third, fourth, and fifth
as opening we can. And that is also the weekend
that season passolders can save ten dollars on their tickets
by purchasing them at the gate, and that is the
only time you can purchase at the gate.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, which was a question that I've
seen on social media a couple of times. So there's
that answer. It's also going to be my media night
for my media correct on the third, the third Friday,
the third Friday, the third and now Silverwood last day.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Last day is the twenty eighth, twenty eighth, twenty eighth.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yes, so we apologize for all of that. And I
know sometimes things happened last night around here. We are
at theme park, so sometimes it's a circus.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
We made we made it. We made it change.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So we made it change, funny enough, that's how we
originally had it, so it didn't like in our minds.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Yeah, it was like a week and a half of
change an hour back.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, it's easier this way, Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
And so now we have fourteen nights of Scarywood and
not eleven, so.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
We couldn't keep yeah, bigger batter, scarier monsters away.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Well, and I guess I guess that is a point
because we haven't mentioned the updated Haunt because last week
just talked about tickets.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, so let's talk about Scary one.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
A little bit. Yeah, because we're gonna have more episodes
on those.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
Yeah, yeah for sure, But might as well give them
a little tea because tickets are on sale now.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Tickets are on sale, so definitely buy them early because
they do sell out.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yes, they're limited, and this is date specific, so not
like the Silverwood season your scary would tickets are date specific,
So make sure that you know when you want to
go and get those tickets. Those Saturdays probably go really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Saturdays are definitely especially as you get closer to Halloween.
The more occupancy that comes to the park, the more
people that want to visit. Because it's later in the seasons,
people feel more like it's Halloween. Yeah. Last year we
started at the end of September and we have one
so we have one less weight weekend this year, and
(03:53):
so come early. I think that's always the tip is
come early.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yep, and enjoy come early. Say it's going to be baker,
bigger and badder, batter that's our theme this year. We've
had some hints. I did see that one of our
news stations Kick So I did do a little uh
tease based off of our social media trying to figure
out what that hint was. And I think people pretty
(04:18):
much know I.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Was going to say. I was like, it wasn't much
of a hint.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
It was kind of just telling it because it says
the swine, which was our new haunt last year, is
bigger and badder this year.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Yeah, which hints at.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
It doesn't mean that pig Mama is getting any bigger.
She's reached her maximum capacity for her house. But the bigger,
and especially after our year under her bell exactly, I
hope y'all are ready for pig Mama. She's gonna love
that we're talking about her right now. Can I tell
them what she does in her day job. She's a baker,
(04:50):
pig baker. She's a pig baker. She makes the most
incredible cookies of any swine that I've ever tasted. Their cookies,
which is none but one.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Of the one y.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
So good. Yeah, So she's just let's just say, the
persona is really funny to see it from. It's very
one ankle for the next. Yeah, kind of not.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Really, we know it's we all know it's under there.
But I mean, just to jump on. What is included
in this bigger and badder upgrade with the swine is
last year of the swine. Well we'll touch on this
more details we get closer. But was a true maze
where people could choose their path. That caused a ton
of bottlenecks, and it caused us to It was hard
(05:33):
to staff because you might go one way and you
might not see a lot of people. The other way
was where the people. So we're taking that concept and
like making it more of a unified pathway. But there
are still open areas where you can choose which way
you go, but it goes to.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
One direction up on the same spot and path.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
But we also have three new houses that we're going
to be added to the Swine that you'll be able
to walk through an experience, and so we'll touch on
what those entail in the future episode.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yes, Yes, and I can't wait. I'm just so ready.
I may have spent like an hour in bed last
night looking at Halloween decorations on Amazon. Leg for your office, no,
for my house. My office is already ready. I got
the bag I left today. I am just totally prepared.
But yeah, it's it's time to start decorating. I can't
wait any longer. Okay, So it's started happening.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Yeah, And then the other pulse would be we are
coming up on the end of the Boulder Beach.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Can you believe there's only two more weekends?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Two more weekends of Bolder Beach?
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Come out.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Use those tickets that you have purchased or those comp
tickets that you have earned the red arrived. Those do
have blackout dates on the Saturday and Sunday Labor Day,
but come out because after the first of September, no
more water park.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
It's crazy, which is we just started.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
We literally just had dry run. I feel it's so
strange to me. And yeah, on that last weekend Coaster Classic,
there's a reel up that was posted today. You can
check out some details on that and what that entails. Yeah,
we're drawn to a click coming close of summer. So,
like Jordan said, make sure to use your tickets and
(07:11):
get to the park before summer slips away.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
It can be gone. Yeah, it doesn't wait for you.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
No, it doesn't wait for you, for ask or anybody.
So let's head on into the beil train whal train.
All right, more great questions this week. I had a
couple that I just had to to touch on because
they were funny. So but let's start with mister Patrick Jones.
Patrick had a couple questions. First off, what sort of
(07:37):
community involvement and outreach does Silver would do in North Idaho?
And I thought that was good leading into our community
appreciation weekends.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
So go ahead, Jordan, Well, there's a lot. It's hard,
it's hard to h it's hard to quantify all of it. Specifically,
for September, the last three weekends of Silverwood, four dollars
of each ticket goes to help our local food ba
and so because of guests that come through and we
are able to donate a good check to to each
(08:09):
food bank in our local area. And so that's always
fun to do. That's one of my favorite days of
the of the year. And then we have Canopy Village,
which we support with the train and for those who
ride the train, we're not just taking your money for tips. Yeah,
it is going, it is going. All of it goes
to Canopy Village.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
And then we got Dynamite. Dan is not using it
for a college fund, I promise, So no, he's not
not happening, but he is giving it to these kids
so that maybe they can do something great. And yeah,
so those are a couple things. And then amongst all
of that, I know that obviously we've helped out with
local schools, helping them to build new facilities, and there's
(08:50):
there's a lot of things that we're involved in and
that we sponsor or things like that, and this community
is so incredibly important to sell wood into our founder
and his family, and we're a staple here.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yeah, So we definitely don't want to like we don't
we don't want to live on an island and I've
heard that from Garrett.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
This is not anyelid.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
We need to We have a community that we want
to help out and bring along with us.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, And I can tell you, even after so many
years in radio, the sense of community I get working
here is incredible. It's more so than being in an
industry where technically that's what it was supposed to be,
you know what I mean. And so there's it's it's
a it's a beautiful thing around here. So make sure
that you come and come during community appreciation weekends because
it's for a good cause, and make sure to donate
(09:39):
on the train for those kiddos at Canopy Village. So
that's a good question, but Patrick wasn't done. He also
wanted to know how early people should show up at
the park for Scary Wood Early early.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, Yeah, so Scarywood gates open at seven. Unless it's
going to be a busier night than we opened earlier,
you definitely want to be one of the first ones
the gates to get straight to whatever attraction or ride
you want to get to first. So with that being said,
if you were here by six, in scan tickets by
(10:14):
six point thirty, yeah you're doing pretty good. Okay, but
on some of those, like Saturdays, you definitely want to
be closer to six.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, definitely, I agree. So there's your answer. What time
in the parking lot would you say, in the parking lot?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Be in the parking lot by six?
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Okay, there you go. There's your answer. Patrick, who also
wanted to tell us, can I can I read this
on air?
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah? Ahead, Okay.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
So the last podcast was hilarious because the commercial that
was running was for pest control and you guys had
a fly infestation in the recording, so I had to
include that because I thought that was so funny. So Patrick,
I'm glad you enjoyed our little chaos. Luckily it's not
as bad today.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I just have one.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Yeah, there's been one that's buzzing around that's super annoying.
But aside from that, I don't know where.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
They're laying on your face.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
That just lap me at all this episode. So thank
you for that. Patrick, Thank you so much for listening
as well. Ernest Wick wants to know what's the distance
from the front gate to the water park. Do you
know this?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
I don't know this.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
We need to go out there and do your little
step thing. Yeah we should walk in, Yeah we should.
I mean it's.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
I mean, what do you what do you think like
a like a quarter.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
A mile from the front gate to the water park?
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Do you think it's less than a quarter a mile? Amanda?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Probably last a quarter mile?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, I'm just trying to think of a like a
track laid out.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, flat flat, That's what I do in my head too.
And I'm glad he didn't ask the parking lot because
that would be a completely different story. Yeah, that's than
a quarter mile. I'm going to stick with that local
measure it and we'll update Ernest on the next episode. Okay, Amanda,
will you remind us to do that?
Speaker 3 (11:52):
Yeah, please remind us?
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Remember? Okay, Eileen Roman, she thinks she's silly. She wants
to know is it actually fun working there? Or do
you guys get bored after a while? And I left
so hard, like we work at a theme park? When
is it going to get boring? It's boring that the
one word never is boring. I'll tell you that for
(12:13):
ever ever. So I had to laugh at that. So, no, Eileen,
it doesn't.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Get us fun.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
But it's never boring, never borning. That definitely. Somebodies are
super crazy and some are a little slower, but never boring.
But never boring. I mean, I can't even think of
a boring day. So so Eileen, come work for us,
Come and check it out for yourself. I am ready
to call it a loyal listener. So if you guys don't
know how to do this, if you want to be
(12:41):
a loyal listener for your chance to win tickets, sign
up silver with Themepark dot com, Slash podcast and we
could be calling you like we're going to be calling
this week's winner. So give it up, spin, we have
a winner, all right. This week we are calling winner
number two six to six. Let's get them on the phone. Hello, Hey, Rob,
(13:13):
this is Sarah, Jean and Jordan calling from the Silverwood
Show podcast here at Silverwood Theme Park. How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (13:19):
Good?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Good? Hey? Guess what you are this week's loyal listener
And so we've got a pair of tickets for you
to come to Silverwood this season. Oh that's so cool,
or next season it's getting difficult. But that's not all Rob.
Are you ready for a little bonus offer? Of course?
(13:41):
All right, if you're willing to play a short little
game with us, you could win upwards to seventy five
dollars in silverwood cash you down, all right, okay, Right,
We're gonna play true or false with you. So it's
super simple. You have a fifty percent chance of getting
it correct. I'll give you a statement, let me know
if you think it's true or false. If you get
it right, you get five dollars. If not, we'll just
move on to the next one. And then at the end,
(14:03):
Jordan has a little SoundBite he's going to play for
you of a ride for your chance to win fifty dollars.
All right, sound good, Okay, let's get things started. True
or false? The sections in Boulder Beach are named after
different flowers. That would be false. Yes, it's nice. I
(14:25):
like that, all right, So Idaho gems obviously, okay, true
or false? Silverwood is open rain or shine that would
be true. And he's got ten dollars in the bank.
Nice job, Rob, nice job, Rob Hey. That rhymes okay,
onto numbers.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
I never heard that before.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Corkscrew is originally from Florida. That's false, Rob, you are
on it. He's been hitting the good buttons so many
times it's not even working anymore. Okay, So fifteen dollars
in the bank. Onto the next one. Panic plunge drops
you one hundred and twenty feet. Ooh, we stumped him.
(15:07):
Oh maybe true?
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Wow that guy, good job, you're on fire.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
You're on fire. Twenty dollars in the bank. One more
true or false before we head into the SoundBite. Silverwood
used to be an aerodrome.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
True.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
There you go, five or five? Maybe you should hosts?
Speaker 1 (15:28):
Yeah, no kidding, Okay, twenty five dollars in the bank.
Go ahead, Jordan.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Okay, So this next is a new SoundBite. We haven't
used it yet because the last episode someone someone actually
guess correctly.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
So this is a new one.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
It's a ride either in Silverwood or Boulder Beach. It's
just a little clip. I'm gonna play it for you
right now. So here it comes. Maybe what ride do
you think that is?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Oh? It sounded like water. Is that eagle hunt? That is?
Speaker 3 (16:07):
That is a good guest.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I don't even know what it is, Rob, So but
you still got twenty five dollars in Silverwood cash. You
got a pair of tickets and I'll give you a
call or a text after the podcast is over and
we'll discuss whether you want them for the season or
next and how to pick them up. All right, awesome,
thank you so much, Thank you long and for knowing
so much about Silverwood. Great. Yeah, so have a great day, Rob,
(16:31):
thank you. Okay, bye. Rob's a pro.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
Rob's a pro. Robs a pro pro. They also might
have been a little easy.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
Well, yeah, I know, I'm running.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Out of rain or shine. Well, I guess that's a
question that we do get a lot, So.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Thank god, I get it all the time, and that's
kind of how I get these sometimes is what I've
been seeing the most in terms of that week, and
so it kind of helps me to answer some questions
without having to deliberately answer them. Okay, so, who's ready
to talk trains?
Speaker 3 (17:04):
I am?
Speaker 1 (17:05):
I am too too into the big drop drum. Well,
welcome back. We are here with this week's special guest.
We've got Quincy Saunders in the house and you are
the lead train maintenance. Is that your title? How do
you say your title?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Maintenance maintenance Okay, I was almost there, but yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
He basically read his name tag train.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Is that why so that we can figure we can
figure it out? Okay, well, already knew that was an
inside scoop for you. I'm learning something. But we are
here with Quincy, and Quincy is the train professional. He's
what keeps that train a moving every single day throughout
the winter, all season long to make all this stuff
(17:53):
literally all things train. And we know that we've got
a lot of guests or a lot of guests, a
lot of listeners soon to be guess maybe ye that
are completely obsessed with the train. I mean, how could
you not be?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
And this is going to start it at all.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Yeah, this is going to be a really fascinating episode
for you guys to kind of learn a little bit
about that train and how Silverwood kind of got it
start right. But first let's get to know Quincy a
little bit. So Quincy, tell us about yourself. How long
you've worked here, any other positions that you've done, and
if you like a certain ride the best or a
certain food the best, A little bit about you?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Noight, Yeah, I started here in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
I came off of the oil field slope actually up
in North Alaska. Well, and they basically told me up there, Hey,
you're going to go ahead and leave your family for
six months and work up here. And I said, nah. Now,
so I had a friend that worked here and he
said interviews. So I came and interviewed and started working
with the train. And I've only worked with the train. Yeah,
I'll do special odd ball jobs for maintenance, but for
(18:52):
the most part, strictly the trains what I've been doing
now for the past five years.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
And the train is your baby.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Oh yes, and you have you didn't have any how
much experience with trains have you had before?
Speaker 3 (19:02):
Well, specifically trains. Nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But as far as pressure goes, everything in the oil
field was pressure related. That's so directing pressure to go
to certain places. So a lot of what I did
there translated over. But as far as what I knew
about steam engines, my guess is there's less than three
hundred people in the United States that work on steam
engines at the rate that me and the crew do,
and so it wasn't a lot. A lot of what
I had to learn was hit the ground running. I
(19:25):
had had to learn it from YouTube videos. There's a
bunch of old books in the train barn. One of
them is written in nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
Yeah, so I've got these old books that I have
to be really delicate about where I've learned a lot
of the information from.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
We need to digitize, we do.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
We're talking either that or you need to just literally
live forever or we're in trouble.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
So yeah, it makes it makes sense. But the English
is just almost one hundred years old, so it's different,
a little different. Yeah, definitely a little different.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
It's cool, it's it's surreal sometimes.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
I mean, what a fun job, for sure. So when
you're not on the train, what do you do here
at Silverwood? Like for fun? Is there a particular ride
that you love or.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
Yeah, i'd say that Stunt Pilot when it came out,
I was most excited about that, and I still like
it and I don't have to work on it, so
I think I get in just an enjoyment that take
just things.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
A little bit right, absolutely, Okay, And your favorite food
at the park.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Honestly probably the chicken at the.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Not Utter barbcue Chuck way, So okay, I can agree
with that. Okay, Okay, So there's a little inside scoop
on Quincy. But let's kind of get into it. What
does it take on a daily basis to keep a
nineteen fifteen steam engine train running?
Speaker 4 (20:38):
Okay, Well, every morning two or three of us my crew.
I couldn't do this without my crew. I've got an
amazing crew. I've got two guys work with me, Chad
and Thomas. But every morning we get in check to
make sure there's nothing written on the board that the
engineers have discovered. Yeah, then we go through our daily
list of making sure that it's filled with water, we
make sure that it's got all the right chemicals, and
(21:00):
we make sure that it's got all the oil is
filled back up, and we have to grease it every
single day, and then we have to go through the inspection.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Part of it.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So I've got a checklist that I go through, and
I go through and meticulously check each thing to make
sure that nothing's gone wrong with it. And then after
that we pull it out and get it oiled. And oh,
we have to do the same thing for the train
cars and the track too, so and then we have
to pull it out after we oil the like the axles,
(21:27):
to make sure it's good to go every single day
that happens, and it's just a gravity feed that just
kind of drops onto it all day. The engineers also
have to do it once a day too.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
In the middle of the day, we.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Pull out to the oil shed and we end up
getting the fuel, which is reclaim motor oil. That's what
the train runs on now, is reclaim motor oil. That's
the most common question we get up there in the
front of the train.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Is this real?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
This runs off of diesel now, right, But it's it's
all real.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
It's all the exact same stuff, except rather than coal
now it's reclaim motor oil.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
Interesting.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
And then we get that filled up and we go
and we latch up to the train cars and that
gets another inspection to make sure all the brakes are
actuating correctly, and then we pull it to the depot.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
This is like an airport, like you see them doing
the checklist on the airplane before you take off. I mean,
this is a lot more than I think. It's like, yeah, okay,
you know, I know, but it's like the checklist that
the pilots have to do before they take off. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's intensive. What okay you said, dirty job? Yes, yeah,
(22:32):
definitely a dirty job.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Pretty clean right now? Yeah, I try. I try to
stay clean because of this today.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Okay, okay, yeah, I think it's the cleanest I've ever seen,
always covered and train whatever. Yeah, yeah for sure. Okay,
you mentioned water. How much water does the train hold?
Speaker 4 (22:51):
The uh tender holds two thousand gallons and the boiler
holds roughly five hundred. Wow, and then we have to
fill it up several times a day, the tender several
times a day, and the field the boilers several times
a run in order to make sure we have enough
water in.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
There so it runs out well.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
So that's what happens like out of the Silver Mine
for the show, you guys have to is that a part?
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Yeah, So when we get to the robbery, we are
down low on water. We're towards the bottom of our sideglass,
and we have to get all of our water back
up to the certain mark. We have a marked that
marks that have this much water when we leave the station,
have this much water when we leave the robbery, because
if you have too much, the trail on right, and
(23:33):
if you have too little, the train will stop being
a train if you're runner the water. When we get there.
We need to know roughly how much time we're going
to be there. And we've just learned the show, so
we know, Okay, get this much water by this part
of the show, get this much water by this south
part of the show, get this much water, and this
much pressure because we have to have a certain amount
of pressure leaving the station. We want to have a
(23:55):
certain amount of pressure leaving the train the silver Mine.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I never knew that the silver Mine was really at Yeah, but.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
We but we do run some of the shows that
don't stop there.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
So how does that change things?
Speaker 4 (24:08):
Yeah, so if we we know what we're running, we
can change that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And so we'll draw water after the trustle, will draw
or across the trustle, and then we won't draw water
again until we get to the silver Mine. However, if
the show is shorter, we have to draw water two
times before the robbery, and then we have to draw
it again right before or right after Gary's Corner if
you depending on how much pressure you have. Yeah, and
(24:34):
so it changes the script that way. If it's like
really rainy and they tell us, oh, we're not going
to do the show. That's why we request to know
by the end of the Trustle, because otherwise we're going
to be kind of fighting the water and the pressure.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So make sense if we have a script that we
try to stick to.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
And if you've ever been lucky enough to get on
one of the train rides where we're going off scar
two miles an hour up the Trustle, that's because we've
either slipped on a little bit of grease we have
to used the track in order to make sure that
doesn't get worn down, yeah, or somebody unfortunately wasn't paying attention,
which is more more rare.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Than having decrease. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
And then it just goes slow, and then we're in
focus mode trying to just get up that trustle, and
so sometimes the actors have to kind of flesh out there, do.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Some mad live and yeah, Jordan just got off the train.
I did just get off the train, yeah, Or should
I say I.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Just robbed the train and got a lot of money,
did you, well, Canopy Village got a lot of.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Money, yes, yes, but good job for cant so Yeah.
So Jordan's literally.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Freshsh fresh off the train. I had like, look dishovel,
my hair is almost up.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I thought you were going to come and dressed as dynamite.
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Dan, No, it's too hot to do that.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
She disappointed in you, right, Okay, so we kind of
talked about that. What would you say is like the
biggest challenge in maintaining the train it's one.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Hundred and ten years old.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I can't get any part of
that at AutoZone or at NAPA, right. So Luckily we've
got amaze support crew here. You know, we've got fabricators
here that can help us make things. We've got the
machinists here that can machine some of the parts in house,
and everything else we have to get through vendors that'll
come a third party machinists like so Northwestern Machine shout
(26:14):
out to them, most of our parts that need to
be fabricated. We show them one hundred and ten year
old piece that's cracked or broken, and we're like, eh,
can you do something with this?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
And they go yeah, but it can't be this way anymore.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Things have changed so slowly as the years go on,
things have been replaced that need to be Like, for instance,
the caps on the end of the cylinders. Just throughout
being one hundred and ten years old, they developed a
hairline fracture and it was cast iron cast seals, so
you can't weld on that. Yeah, so train's got to
(26:48):
keep running, but we can't run with that anymore. So
we have to give them this piece and they say, well,
we have to do these corners different and it has
to be made out of this material. So from two
years ago that piece being about ninety five pounds to
get it on and off of there to being like
one hundred and thirty five pounds get off.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
So, oh geez, So you are doing a workout too. Okay,
So we're working out and we're fixing the train. What
happens in the winter, So.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
That's when we take it all apart.
Speaker 4 (27:13):
Like if we find out anything that's wearing out during
the season, I can't work on this thing. I can't
do everything with this train when it's hot, Like right now,
there's water in the boiler and when I come in
it's still hot. If I had to replace a valve,
it's a huge deal where I have to come in
at like two in the morning in order to bleed
it down to a certain amount of pressure. So if
anything's wearing out and not broken, we're gonna wait till
(27:33):
we go to weekends where it can cool down, replace
all these things.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
So we set up a list of all these things that.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Need to be replaced when it can be cooled down,
and then we take apart a lot of the train.
We end up measuring like the inside of the cylinders
to make sure how much where we've got going on.
Measure the wheels, find out what's going on with them.
Measure all the spindles on the wheels to make sure
that those aren't getting worn down. Any parts that need
to be rebuilt, we redo that. And then the train
(27:59):
car are there are they need the most attention. We're
constantly repairing them. You know, those aren't one hundred and
ten years old, but there would. Yeah, and so there's
they've they've all the wooden floors and stuff is all
winter were repairing all those and we have five train
cars and roughly five months, so we try to do
one train car a month if it.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Works out that way, Yeah, yeah, if you can.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And then oh and then of course after silver Wood closes,
we go into track work season really hard.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Okay, yeah, so you're working on the actual railroad tracks
as well. What does that entail?
Speaker 4 (28:33):
So if we don't have an excavator, it is literally
pick out the gravel around it, grab it with tongs,
through great effort, pull it out, clear out the base.
We've actually started doing something new these past few years.
We were actually wiping away the old original base and
putting in new ballast underneath that. That way we have
better drainage, and so we're sliding that back in. We
(28:54):
have to gauge it, make sure everything's good. We're trying
to make sure the track is level and straight, and
then we will spike it down and then go on
to the next spot. Yeah, and it's a never ending
If I were to get done with every single tie here,
it would take us long enough to by the time
done with that, you start over at the other one
(29:14):
to eat it more.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Yeah. Okay, so literally that is a constant.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
How many are you doing a year?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
I think our best year when we had a lot
of people on it, I think we did like three
hundred ties, but we had I had a big crew.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
Helping me at that point.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
I'd say on average we probably get about one hundred maybe,
but it slowed down also when we started redoing their
road base.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Sure so and how so three hundred ties that sounds
like a lot, But how spread out are those Some of.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
Them will be you have one right here by the
coyote that's worn out, and then you have another one
over here it's twenty feet over here, and another one
that's three hundred feet over there. But we're also trying
to do as these sections go bad, one tie after
another all the way through, and we'll get like sixty
of those, and then we'll go the next area that's got.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
That, and those are spaced out like a half Yeah,
got a foot I would have guessed that.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Nice job, Jordan. Good Yes, for the record, good job,
Jordan knew that.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
It's just, you know, the only reason why I know
that is because I've walked the whole tracks and it's
like a step every time, and sometimes it's like, oh,
that's a little bit less than a normal step.
Speaker 4 (30:19):
And hopefully with the next five years they'll all be
exactly uniform. But you've got over the course of silver
Wood and so many different guys doing track work. Now
we've got a kind of uniform and it'll continue to
be that way.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah. Yeah, that's so crazy because obviously the average person
who's working on a train isn't also working on the tracks,
you know, so you are literally from one end of
the spectrum to the other. Yeah, to this train. What
everybody talks about the steam engine trains like, I mean,
they're they're very special, right, What what makes everybody talks
about them? Well, I mean everybody goes crazy over ours,
(30:52):
you know, it's so special. It's such a centrified thing,
you know. And what I don't know trains personally. I
have a lot of friends who were train fanatics. But
what makes a steam engine train like so special versus say,
any other train that used to run back then?
Speaker 3 (31:07):
Well, they were all steam engines back then.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Yeah, it's a when you think about it, like how
far away it was in history. It's amazing technology like
we figured out like, for instance, if you take one
measurement of water and turn it into steam, it turns
into seventeen hundred of the same measurement. So one drop
of water turns into seventeen hundred drops of steam oka
and so you get a lot of power out of there.
(31:32):
And so it's amazing that we found out that you
can get so much power just from heating water, and
the strength that you can do with fire and water
is incredible that people came up with this one hundred
something years ago.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
And this train was going from one side of the
country to the other.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
No a Rika Palisade.
Speaker 4 (31:53):
It was working on a sideline for a silver mine,
and so she was a workhorse originally.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So she actually was a Silver Mayan train.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah. Yeah, Oh, I.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Didn't know that.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
It's really cool that Urica Palisade.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
That place has got a book written about it, and
one of the engineers has it, okay, and it tells
a little history about the train, and uh, when they
first got it, everybody was really excited about Engine seven
because it looked sleek. But she famously slips, and like
I said earlier, we might be slipping on the track.
So we see in this book that she's famous for slipping.
When they were working, I was like, hey, wait a second,
that's what I was doing. Yeah, And then they actually
(32:31):
retired it. They were sitting, we're done with this, so
they took they took her tender from her, and they
ended up putting her outside and like you stay over there, train.
And then there was a fire that claimed all their
trains except for Engine seven, and so they dusted her back,
and in a weird way, we have Engine seven a
day because people didn't like Engine seven back then, and
(32:52):
so it's a blessing that she didn't.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Redemption you guys. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Also in that book, I'd have to look up the
title of the book again, but in that book there's
a picture of engine seven on its side.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Oh, because it slipped, because on its side.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It came off on the side.
Speaker 4 (33:10):
And when I first started working here, there's a part
underneath the train called the wishbone and it's it's cocked
really bad, and you had to take it off every
once in a while all the check stuff. And I
was like, how did this happen? How is this cock
like this? Yeah, and we get it repaired and we
get it all fixed. The Northwest Machine took forever to
fix it, and they got it all repaired. And then
we found that picture of that book.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Like that's it.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
I got that.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
And yeah, if you think about that name of the book,
let me know, and I'll like let the audience know
and put it that, you know, because that's kind of
any I didn't know there was a book about it.
So have you read it?
Speaker 3 (33:41):
No?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
No, Well, maybe we need I've done some research on
the train, just because it is what it is, you know,
and like, yeah, Eureka palisades and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
But it is interesting how spar is that? So how
far was it traveling?
Speaker 4 (33:55):
I can't remember. It wasn't very far. It was maybe
a couple of miles or so. Yeah, it wasn't. It
wasn't huge favor If I'm wrong, it's not by much
off okay, because it.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Was it bringing miners into the mining area and back
to town.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
To my understanding was Engine seven would take the ore
from the inside.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Of the they back.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Up the train cars into the entrant of them, aren't
mind loaded up, and then that would take it back
to the mainline. So she just went back and forth
in order to get the ore back to the mainline.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Interesting, that's so crazy. I didn't know any of the see,
so I'm learning things. This is which means our audience
is learning things, because unless they're like Jordan, they know everything.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
But yeah, I got that wrong.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, So well what else here? Gosh?
Why do you think in your own personal opinion that
this train is such a part of the iconic experience
at Silverwood?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I always call it the face of Silverwood. It's what
people come.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
They want to see, it's like what they see on
the pictures when they come to visit. It's the first
thing that people see other than the carousel when they
when they come in the UH in the park and
people always come up and they want to tell us
a little tidbit of information they found out about it.
And then, like I said, the uh first question everyone asks,
is this real? And then yes, it's it's real. And
(35:10):
where's that steam come from? Steam comes from the spire
that we have, But yeah, it's I think it's kind
of people are surprised to see a steam engine. I
know there's lots of them, but there's not as many
as anything else you see.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
And you don't see him at theme parks there's a few. Yeah,
coolest is the coolest, right right.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
That's how we got in, Yes, in the mid in
the bidding war at Hera's auction in Reno, Nevada.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
So how did she end up there?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
I think there's a museum. I think she was in
a museum.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yeah, if I'm remembering right, it was that after she
was done working, she went to a museum, and then
after the museum she went to a casino owner and
he's the one who actually put all the brass on.
Speaker 3 (35:54):
It, that's heros.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
Yeah, And so when he passed away, his wife just
auctioned it off, so she wasn't obsessed with trains like
he was.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
So and that's where Gary found.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
It, okay, and he went ahead.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
So up upstairs, and I have a booklet of that auction.
Everything that's like would be for sale for that auction,
and engine number seven is circled and it said and
it says like there's a I think I said mine
or ours question mark or something like that.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Like Gary, it's the actual book.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Yeah, okay, can we take a picture of that post?
I probably can't.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, but it's pretty cool because I mean he originally
didn't really go there for that that. I think he
went there to get the trimotor airplane. So and then
there's other things that he had circled, but that was
one and.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
He come home with anything else, A bunch of rail,
lots of rail.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
I think he got the trimotor too, Yeah, but yeah,
that lots of rail. And then there's pictures of them,
him and his kids and stuff working on the railroad
and lay in the track and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
So so Gary actually was out there like laying the track.
That's so cool.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Yeah, they said the old engineers when I first started,
they said that even though Gary hasn't driven it in
a while, they said he could drive the crud out
of the train all the way around.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yeah. Oh yeah, And I've seen his granddaughter do it.
Speaker 4 (37:17):
Day.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, so that's always kind of cool whenever she fills
in or whatnot.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
How fast can it go?
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Well, there's a rule that I heard that you can
you take the diameter of the wheel and you subtract
a few numbers off of that, and that's roughly the
mouth per hour. So thirty two inches is with the
wheel in theory, could go twenty eight twenty nine.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
If you're pushing it. We will not go that fast.
Speaker 4 (37:39):
I work on the track and as we're going that
fast in the track, it's it's damaging the track. I'm
sure we've never taken that fast. I think they said
during the Scary Wood days when it was running, they
would do about fourteen and so we know that it
can handle that.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah, yeah, what is it doing now?
Speaker 4 (37:54):
We try to stick around eighty. It's kind of changes
from time to time.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Eight.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
It's kind of good for the show. It's good for
the tr track.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
Sometimes we get fire lit under us to go ten
and that's we can do that. But like I said,
the faster we go, the more the track goes. There's
actually a few times where if you see that the
engineers hit that the tightest corner after the after the
silver mine, if they hit it at eight miles per hour,
you can actually go to the edge of the ties
and you can see that there's a gap between the
(38:23):
edge of the TI and earth.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
So I can tell when my engineers have have gone
a little.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
We're supposed to hit that at six or lower, and
so if they hit it at eight, it actually actually moves.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
So yeah, it's interesting being on the train and like
acting on the train because you can tell when it's
just two miles an hour difference.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
Yeah, if you're like, whoa, we're.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Moving, we're cutting that line and we're moving to the
next time we're cruising through this area.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah. Do you ever fall over like when you're no,
not really, Yeah, you keep your balance, you get your
train legstad train legs. It's like legs. Okay, okay, any
other questions Jordan before I enter with more.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I mean, well, I guess on the front half
of the train versus the back half of the train,
because you're on a I don't think people realize you're
on really a constant, steady inclimb from where to where
I know the Trustle is probably the max peak of
that spot.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Trustle is the highest spot.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
And when I was a kid, when I rode this thing,
I had had no idea there was a grade. So
I'm assuming a lot of the guests don't know either.
And the first time I drove it, he said, hey,
get a little bit faster for this hill, And I said, oh,
what hill. Yeah, He's the whole thing is hill. And
so it starts at the very beginning of the buffalo
pen is what is the low spot before then we're
kind of going downhill before then, and then we have
(39:39):
to be getting to the right speed, uh. And then
it's a gradual increase from the beginning of the Buffalo
all the way through the valley and then to the
top of the Trustle, And we have to hit that
correctly in order to get all the way up to
the top.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
If we hit it.
Speaker 4 (39:55):
Far too slow, then we're slipping and we're fighting to
go all the way up, dropping a lot of sand
for traction, and if we're going too fast, like if
we're doing like, if we happen to hit it at ten,
often it'll slow down. But if you're got fully loaded
guests on there and you try to go from ten
down to eight, you might miss that go all the
way to six and you're not getting back to eight
if you have a full long So that's sometimes why
(40:15):
we'll be going faster than we anticipated up the hill,
because it's like, well, it's either this or it's four.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah. Yeah, So the things that you would never know
that were happening behind the scenes. How many people think
that it's just like going around in circle? Yeah, you
just said sands, I have no idea. Where's like, where
do you keep it?
Speaker 4 (40:32):
If you look at the side profile of the train,
we've got three domes on there. The middle dome is
the big one that directs the steam to the drive,
and the other two are is the sander domes, and
those just have brass tubes that come down and drop
sand and you'd be surprised you can feel it. I
don't know if you would know it what you're looking for,
but if you drop just a little bit of sand
on there, the whole thing rumbles under your feet, and
you can feel it on the train cars. So when
(40:53):
I'm riding with my family and we're going up the hill,
I can feel the rumbling. Oh well, they're dropping sand.
So it's a thing that I've kind of been trained
to feel. And Chad, Thomas and I we all are
aware of all the noises in the rumbling, and whenever
anything new makes a slightly different noise, all three of
us like, yeah, that.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Sound like that.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
Also, you mentioned that you wrote it when you were
a kid.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I did.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, little did you know as a child.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
I came here when I was twelve.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, oh my gosh, and you wrote the so what
did you do? You remember what you thought about it?
Speaker 4 (41:22):
Then I suppose I shouldn't say this as the train guy,
but I remembered I had never wrote a roller coaster
in my life, and I remember it's just adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline,
and then ride around two, you know, when you're digesting
your lunch. When we rode the train and I was like, ooh,
this was this was a lot more calm than I expected.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
Yeah, I love the train. I like working on the train,
but I'm going in brown. I was twelve. I should
have started with the train and then gone.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
To the exactly. It's actually a good I mean a
big change in speed there for sure, now that I
know it's going eight miles an.
Speaker 2 (41:52):
Hour, eight miles an hour to sixty miles an hour
a little different.
Speaker 1 (41:56):
It's a little bit of a different there. So are
there fun facts? Are there anything maybe that people don't
know about the train that you'd be able to tell us,
maybe other things other than the dropping sand or.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
Well, every time he talks, we're like, wait.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Yeah, yeah, give us more. We want more as far
as like tips for the guests you may or no,
just in general about the train, fun facts, maybe some
historical things, anything else that you might know.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
There are stories that you may have from just driving it.
Or winter, and.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
Every single winter the track changes its location. We have
to go line and level. In the springtime, you'll notice
it's a lot more rougher, and then snow heaves or
ice heaves that feel up and then they come and
so you'll actually see that at the beginning of the
season train cars are moving a lot more than they
are now. And then as we find any spots that
are on level, we gotta do that a lot of
people don't know that that's the thing that happens because
(42:48):
that's just on ground out there. There's no cement foundations.
So wherever the ground's gonna move, the track's gonna move
with it. So that's a probably an unknown thing.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
How long does it take to prepare the train before
season starts for that first run?
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Oh, I mean we start getting really ready probably beginning
of April, end of March, and then it's just a
nervous wreck from there until I successfully go around the
track once.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Yeah, Because I've taken the whole thing apart and then
I'm putting it back together.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I'm like, okay.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
It's like if you were a kid and you were
to take apart your remote control and then you find
an extra component and a couple of screws. I'm always like, okay,
do I have everything? Everything's put back in there, and
then you start taking and you're listening for any noises.
So it takes us probably about month month and a
half before we're like ready to go, because there's like
in the winter time, it's tear everything apart, fix everything,
(43:39):
fix everything, and then somebody inevitably says, oh hey, it's
eight weeks still opening and you go, oh yeah, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Well I can tell you from the marketing standpoint, that's
my favorite.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
That's signals. That's signals that the season is coming. When
we hear that train whistle for the.
Speaker 1 (43:56):
First time, and it's always the weather's starting to change.
And yeah, I miss having that to look out my window,
you know, in an off season, because that's my favorite
part is just seeing the train go by from my windows.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
So what about you have the plymouth.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Explain what the plymouth is to everybody who doesn't know
what that word means in terms of the train, even.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
I have no idea, Sarah, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
And how you use that to help your process?
Speaker 4 (44:20):
Okay, So the plymouth, or we call it a tug too,
is a little diesel motor driven equipment that it can
actually can latch up to the front of the train. Yeah,
the green one with the yellow plow, it's got a
plow on it and we plow the winter every once
in a while.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Just that crossing right there.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
We found that if we're trying to get our train
cars from where they're parked under tarps in the winter
time to the side of our train barn shop, then
we have to have a clear road, so we have
to make sure that gets cleared and that thing has
zero traction in the in the ice, and so yeah,
I in fact a quick story about that. I'm backing
(44:58):
up and I've got Chad and Thomas are there. They
digged up all the stuff, and I've got to go
over maybe about eight inches of snow and I'm going
as fast as i can, and if I can just
make to the crossing, we're gonna make it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Well.
Speaker 3 (45:10):
I chickened out and I was like, I'm derailing. I
can feel it. I'm derailing. I wasn't.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
It was perfectly fine. I chickened out and lost all momentum.
And then Chad and Thomas like ah, we all three
got on there and dug underneath it with the snow.
During the season, if all goes well, we're barely using it.
We have to when we get in, we put a
propane heater in the engine and then it'll actually heat
it up to where we can drive out on its own.
(45:36):
If that heater happens to go out or one of
us doesn't catch that it goes out, we need to
be able to light the train with about fifty PSI
at the lowest. If we only have seventy five, we're
going to use about twenty five of that getting it out.
So we will go, oh shoot, we'll go grab the
engine with the tug pull it out.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
That way, we didn't waste any steam.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
We can still at our fire We use that to
move all the train cars around during the winter time.
If the engine were to break down, we could tote
with that. The engine never broken down, but if it did,
we could get it with that.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
And wait, the engine has never broken down.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
I mean as far as broken down, it's been an
issue where like we had one oil valve that came
loose on the NPT thread and they couldn't get the
oil valve open, and no, it did break it. It
didn't breakdown, but they were like, there's one more run left,
go put it away. And so I consider that the
closest thing we've had to break.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
It's pretty good well, and we just so everybody knows,
we do like during the preseason we go through, like
what would a train evacuation look like and make sure
that we do have that safety covered because there are
different spots where if it were to break down, it
would be a completely decently walk back to the depot
(46:51):
and so making sure that that is safe and that
even though we haven't had it, I think there was
maybe a Scary Wood night where we had to have
people walk back years ago before I don't remember when
that was, but before you, yeah, before you. But we
don't run it during Scary Wood either, and so I
think a lot of that wear and tear like you
talk about, like going faster speeds and all that probably
(47:12):
contributed to potentially needing to walk people back from I
think it was the Buffalo pen.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
Okay, yeah, I wonder what happened there. I'll have to
get some more details.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
What about when the elephant blocked the tracks?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
That was a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
They had to walk back.
Speaker 3 (47:25):
Who told us that, I don't remember an elephant.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
We had an elephant at the park when there was
a Z you here, yes, back in late eighties.
Speaker 3 (47:35):
Was it Michelle?
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It might have been Michellechell or justin Yeah, yeah, So
they said that the elephant stood in front of the tracks.
I just didn't want to move. He was just like,
this is where I'm hanging out for now, and how
do you.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Move off between and the elephant?
Speaker 1 (47:49):
So I wonder how long they were there. I mean,
I doubt they had to walk because you're not going
to walk with an elephant.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Yeah, no, please stay on the train. Yeah there's an elephant.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Well the elephant wasn't like they used it and it
gave rides and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
He broke out at jail. He was he was on
a mission for he's not moving for some kind of rebellion.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
But yeah, what's your like favorite part of working on
the train.
Speaker 4 (48:16):
I mean, the easy answer is is driving the train.
It's it's still my favorite part. You know, working on
the whole train is cool, it's surreal and everything. But
it's usually around the time, right after we passed the trustle,
I'll be driving this and I go, this is I'm
driving a steam engine for money.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
This is cool, like.
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Surreal, you know.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
That's that's that's probably it is my favorite thing and
probably the most cliche. But one thing I really like
about this too is like, h like I said, I've
I've got to do one job in the winter time
where I tear it all apart. I do one job
in the summertime where we drive it around, and then
I do one job in the fall while we're doing
exclusively track work. So I liked this job is constantly
like kind of changing its shades and it never gets
stale because you're always doing something new.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
Yeah. Yeah, does your family think you're super cool?
Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (48:59):
Yeah, got I've got little kids about eleven year old
to a seven month old. We got four kids, so
they they love, they love coming back.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah. Like how cool to be able to say my
dad drives the train.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
My dad works on the train.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
In fact, my daughter wreckon or remembered my phone number first,
so if we lost her, she would just say my
phone number. But we told my son, who didn't remember
remember my phone number.
Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yet.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Dad works on the train.
Speaker 1 (49:19):
He does, he.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Fixes the train, They'll find me.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
And so he's like, oh, okay, remember your radio number,
go call it called this number.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Let's see. Have you ever witnessed a magical or memorable
moment on the train over the years.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
I'd say, honestly, the wildlife whenever you see what I
was going to ask about, that's amazing, Like we uh,
there was an eagle ness that originally was pretty close
to the track before it was a dead tree.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
It fell down, but.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Those eagles would catch fish over there.
Speaker 4 (49:49):
And Gary's pond, and so you'd see them swoop down
catch a trout or whatever he's got stocked there, and
they would just fly away, and you're like, I'm driving
a train and I just saw it even.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
Catch a fish like that.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Pretty cool. That's cool.
Speaker 4 (49:59):
We've seenoties out there, moose, elk, deer, an owl. There's
two owls that live over there on the back side
of this really yep.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
And then sasquatch. Sasquatches out there obviosually have some wild
bison out there.
Speaker 4 (50:14):
We actually had a neighbors bison escape onto the property
one time a few years back, and that was we're
just doing our track when we drive by and there's
on like, oh no, one of our buffalo is the
neighbor's buffalo.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Oh no.
Speaker 3 (50:26):
So my job that day was you just keep tabs
on that buffalo. So I'm like in the forest.
Speaker 1 (50:32):
And oh my god, the things you only see in
North Idaho, right, I mean, honestly, and let's talk about
the buffalo because I know that you kind of love
the buffalo, because I'll never forget talking to you that
day and your eyes lit up when you were like,
oh my gosh, there's number one hundred and keeps running
alongside the terrain. And we named her Century and all
of this. How many babies do we have?
Speaker 3 (50:53):
There's three babies.
Speaker 1 (50:53):
Three babies, Okay, very nice. And do we still have
a runner he likes to run alongside the train?
Speaker 4 (50:58):
Yep? Yeah, she she he's the one that gets closest.
It seems to always be that same one. She got
a one hundred tag on her ear that's all worn out.
But she'll come to investigate us if we're working near
the track. And when I do my morning inspection, I'll
be on the four wheeler and I'll be looking at
the track and you'll see her come run up every
once in a while, and she's excited to see you,
and she'll she'll stay the closest. Sometimes the rest of
(51:18):
the hurd will run away, and she'll stay closer. And
in fact, Kat who takes care of the buffalo, When
I said, hey, I saw a buffalo it was running,
she goes, I bet it was one hundred, and I
was like it was yeah. And so she already has
a name for herself. Yeah, so she's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
Cool, And I call her Century. It sounds prettier than
one hundred.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, yeah, I like it. Everybody look out for century
when Conry.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Yes, I've been. I haven't seen her run yet, so
I'm excited that at some point hopefully that will happen.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (51:50):
Oh, Jordan's ready with your inside scoop. Yeah, okay, are
you ready for this inside scoop? This is obviously an
ice cream truck, but you know that's her lead in.
But we want to know your super secret insider tip,
preferably maybe surrounding the train for any of our guests,
whether it be a new guest, an old guest, something
(52:11):
that you would tell them to make their experience even
more special.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:15):
So like what I tell my family or any of
the guests that I send this way and they're going
to ride the train, right, the first thing I tell
them is look at the schedule, because my kids always
want to ride the train first thing in the morning,
but that one's usually a yesteryear, which doesn't include the
whole show.
Speaker 3 (52:28):
Yep.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Yeah, And so I always tell them just take a
second look at the look at schedule. Make sure that
if you want to go on the show, you're on one,
because a lot of people won't know and they'll go.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Oh, I was on here for this time.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
Yeah, and we didn't get the robbery. And then also too,
the show is on the right side of the train.
When I tell people, if you want to witness the train,
be towards the middle of the train.
Speaker 3 (52:47):
If you don't want to get wet, don't sit in
the third car. Might sit on the right side of
the train.
Speaker 4 (52:52):
There's cool stuff on both sides of the train, but
you can see the show a little bit better. I'm
not right, Yep, probably the train car four where you're
close to the sho show.
Speaker 3 (53:00):
You're not turning around to look at it.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (53:02):
So as far as my inside scoop is, there's there's
all our positions. Yeah, but the better positions are where
you can see the show.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
And if you want to get wet, trink car three
if you don't want to get wet four.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
One last question, though, who's your favorite actor in the
train robbery? M questions loaded answer Dynamite Dan for the way,
did you keep your guns handy today?
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Did you I didn't lose a gun?
Speaker 1 (53:38):
Okay? Did you do a backflip? I did a front
flip flip. Yeah, I've never done a backflip. That would
be crazy. Oh really, yeah, okay, just the difference. Yeah
all right, well that's let's wrap things up. Thank you
so much Quincy for hanging out with us today, and
we'll definitely get some clips to follow that for our listeners.
If you want to be the next loyal listener, make
(53:58):
sure to sign up at Silverwood themepark dot com slash podcast.
We could be calling you next. And that's a wrap
on this week's ride. Thanks for tuning in to the
Silverwood Show. If you had a blast to make sure
to subscribe, leave us a review, and share the fun
with your fellow thrill seekers. Got a question, story, or suggestion,
(54:18):
send it our way to podcast at silverwoodthemepark dot com
for a chance to be featured in our mail train segment.
Until next time, keep your hands and feet inside the
podcast and stay thrilling.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Come time.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
That fun
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Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.