Kids, first responders get special train ride
Children and their families from the Glacier Country Boys and Girls Club got a special ride on a BNSF Railway passenger train July 11. The train pulled out of the Whitefish Amtrak station and headed east for about an hour before returning to the station.
Alan Sempf, director of the Flathead Valley Boys and Girls Club, said 153 families from Columbia Falls and Evergreen participated in the train ride.
Area first responders also were special guests on the train trip.
In addition to the ride, the BNSF Foundation donated $10,000 to the club for its after-school and summer programs. This isn’t the first BNSF train ride the club was invited to. A few years ago club m members had a Christmas train ride.
The club has 100 children per day after school and 50 children per day in the summer, Sempf said.
Logan Emerson of Columbia Falls, 8, visits the club every day year-round and enjoys his time there.
“We go roller skating,” said Logan.
The club also is great for his mom, Heidi Wolf.
“He is tired by the end of the day,” she said. “They wear him out.”
She said that the hours fit her schedule, it’s affordable and it’s right across from his school, Glacier Gateway Elementary.
Emerson was a bundle of energy on the train. It was also the end of his birthday party.
The passenger train has been giving special rides for almost 20 years. This year, the Railway Special went on a journey that started in Seattle June 23 and ended in Great Falls July 15.
The train is a mix of new and old — a new locomotive and vintage passenger cars.
Many of the 30 cars were built in the 1950s. Each car has a name and a story. The oldest and heaviest car (220,000 pounds) is the Red River, a sleeping car built in 1930 for the Great Northern Railway.
BNSF attendant Maddie Champion served snacks to the guests as the train passed through several tunnels and ran along the Flathead River.
“I’ve never been up here, it’s really beautiful,” she said.
The Boys and Girls Club was not the only group on the train. First responders and their families were invited to the special ride. BNSF Railway donated $10,000 to Flathead 911 Foundation, which provides funding for public safety organizations in Flathead County.
The railroad also donates to smaller nonprofits such as Farming for the Future Academy in Columbia Falls. Sherry Lewis-Peterson, executive director of the academy, was given tickets to sell for the train ride and the academy could keep the proceeds. She raised $600.
She said that it is a blessing when she gets opportunities like this — particularly when it gets close to bill-paying time and she doesn’t know where the money will come from for the small nonprofit.
Renae Gugler of Kalispell and her children Hannah, 11, and Simon, 9, bought tickets from the academy.
It was the first train ride for them. Renae said that it was exciting for them to see familiar views from a different perspective.
“I’ve driven that road thousands of times,” Renae said, pointing to U.S. 2. “You have a better chance of seeing bears from here.”