Enterprise Recreation Commission plans to put in new playground

Herington Railroad Days commemorates Herington history

By Gail Parsons and Brandy Sensmeier

DCNT Staff

A day after severe storms whipped up a tornado and large hail across the county, cooler temperatures and overcast skies greeted county residents as they headed to Abilene for the Eisenhower Marathon, to Enterprise for a Spring Festival and Herington for Railroad Days.

The Enterprise Spring Festival was a spin off of Country Clatter event, which later turned into the Fall Festival. Annabelle Eaton, a member of the Enterprise Recreation Commission said she was pleased with the turnout for the first Spring Festival and the commission plans to make it an annual event.

“We just sort of reinvented it into the Spring Festival,” she said.

The festival featured dozens of vehicles in a car show as well as food and merchandise vendors.

The highlight of the day came when the commission gathered to make an special announcement.

“Your Parks and Rec people have been contemplating the next big thing that would really impact our kiddos here and we have decided to start a fundraiser to make a new city park,” she told the crowd that gathered as two commission members unrolled a banner featuring new playground equipment.

The goal is to raise $50,000 to replace the old wooden playground equipment with new, safer, modern pieces.

“It’s very safety minded,” she said. “It’s going to be all the recycled plastic to make sure that there’s no insects or ticks. It’s not going to warp and we won’t have to have the big maintenance like we have to on the stuff we have now. I have three small kiddos that love the park but I’m always picking splinters out of them.”

Herington Railroad Days

The annual Herington Railroad Days started several years ago and continues to grow each year with dedicated individuals like Mark Will. The event is a model railroading and railroad memorabilia show and sale and was held Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1.

“”We have several exhibitors who bring and operate model railroad layouts which are a huge attraction to serious model railroaders and to young folks alike,” Will said. “This year our largest operation model railroad layout is 40-foot long and one of the operating layouts is set up to allow kids to operate it.”

Railroad Days helps commemorate Herington’s long history with the railroad, which dates back to the 1880s.

“In this community there are folks who worked for the railroads here during the days of passenger rail service and who, along with their families, were impacted by the rise and fall of the local railroad industry,” Will said. “This event brings many people to Herington and the Tri-County area where they enjoy our lodging, restaurants, and local businesses. It also opens our museum and railroad baggage car exhibits and increases the museum’s visitor traffic.”

Will said he also hopes the event will introduce children to the hobby of model railroading and likes watching the children smile when they get to operate the model trains.

“I love learning about the history of railroading in Herington and putting together the slide show of Herington’s railroad History,” he said.

A highlight of this year’s event was the Sunday roundtable with former railroad workers.

Among the railroad enthusiasts who had models set up was Charlie Horner. He had two setups, which were interactive for the children to play with.

One interaction was to clean up gravel dumped by a derailed cart and to wake the campers with a bear pushing the camper over.

On the other model Horner allowed children to earn their junior engineers badge by operating the train.

Horner attends several events throughout the year and in many locations. He said his largest model depicts Paradise and Randsburg RailRoad in California, where his family to in 1927.

The Paradise branch serves the Diamond Match timber claim providing lumber for match sticks. The Randsburn branch served the Hofling Brothers tungsten mine in the Mojave Desert. The time period depicted is in the early 1900’s to the end of World War II.

Horner said he adds a little to the model every chance he gets.