Looking Back: Playing ‘ride’ and seek on rails

James Rada Jr., Columnist

Lester Albright, Leonard Bowling and Wilson Shulte scattered as one of their friends covered his eyes and began counting. They scurried around, searching for a place to hide; someplace they wouldn’t be found. Crossing into the freight yards for the Western Maryland Railway Co. in Gettysburg, Pa., the boys climbed into a box car Friday morning, Nov. 21, 1929.

Their hiding spot worked better than expected because they weren’t found until Sunday afternoon.

As the boys hid quietly in the box car, a trainman walked by making one last inspection of the train cars. Seeing the open box car, he shut the door and locked it.

Surprised, it took the boys a few moments before they realized they had been locked inside. When they did, they jumped from their hiding places and began banging on the door trying to attract attention. Then the train began moving!

Thus began their 118-mile journey to Cumberland.

Fighting down their initial panic, the boys thought it would be an adventure to take a short ride on the train, but then minutes turned into hours and the hours into days. The train did make one stop in Highfield, Pa., so that the train could be shifted to the main line of the Western Maryland Railroad.

The Western Maryland Railway began as the Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick Rail Road in 1852. It started in Baltimore and was built westward, eventually reaching Hagerstown in 1872. Within the next year after its founding, the company became the Western Maryland Rail Road Co. and then later still, the Western Maryland Railway Co.

The company built an extension into Pennsylvania in 1881 and connected to the Harrisburg and Potomac Rail Road in 1886. Next, the Western Maryland Rail Road connected to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Cherry Run, W.Va., in 1892. This connection improved freight traffic on the railroad.

An extension that ran to Cumberland was completed in 1906. From there, the railroad would extend to Connellsville, Pa., and south into West Virginia.

As passenger service declined in the 1950s, the Western Maryland discontinued it altogether in 1959. By 1973, the Western Maryland Railway became part of the Chessie System, which in turn became CSX Transportation in 1987.

“The first gnawing of hunger overtook the lads Friday evening. It was too cold in the car to sleep either night, and the boys kept awake by moving around,” reported the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel on Nov. 29, 1929.

On Sunday morning, a surprised trainman unlocked and opened the box car in the Western Maryland train yards in Ridgeley, W.Va. The boys jumped out and asked how to get back to Gettysburg. The trainman turned the boys over to a railroad detective named Hanson. He listed to their story and turned them over to the Salvation Army in Cumberland and notified a local detective named Charles Wilson.

“After eating some hot food and a sleep, the trio were none the worse for their experience,” the Star and Sentinel reported.

Wilson notified the boys’ parents and Levi Albright and John Bowling, fathers of two of the boys, drove to Cumberland to pick up the boys on Sunday afternoon and drive them home.

The families had notified the Pennsylvania State Police when their sons hadn’t returned home from playing on Friday, but the police hadn’t been able to find any hint as to the boys’ whereabouts.