Episode 18: True Crime

In this week's episode of Off the Rails with Rowdy and Bethan, we present Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad’s version of a True Crime podcast, or plea for someone else to do one. 

This episode follows another bridge fire on Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and ongoing trespassing concerns.
 
1.)  True Crime Here’s the timeline (with some stuff left out):
 October 2024 – Mean, no-good emails start.
 December 2024 – Trespassing incident / western standoff. 
 December 2024 – More signs, etc. 
 February 2025 – Manifesto
 February 2025 – More emails
        February 2025 – MRSR requests heightened law enforcement due to ongoing risks.  
        April 2025 – Trestle fire at GG-92
       July 2025 – More nasty notes. 
       July 2025 – Harassing phone calls. 
       July 2025 – Boxcar Canyon Fire 1
       September 2025 – Requests to elected officials and law enforcement
       October 2025 – Follow-up to requests
       June 2026 – Boxcar Canyon Fire 2
2.) The most recent fire at Boxcar Canyon and ongoing trespassing issues.
3.) In the News! Trains Magazine drops from 12 print editions every year to 10, the internet has feelings! 
4.) Listener questions, like “do you sleep?” 
Got a question or topic you want us to cover? Send it our way—we'd love to hear from you. So grab your coffee (or whatever is getting you through the day), crank up the phonograph, and let's go Off the Rails.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Off the Rails, the podcast where steam locomotives meet modern madness. Join executive director of the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad, Bethon Maher, and Rowdy Pierce, superintendent, professional cat herder, and occasional cow negotiator. Together they pull back the curtain on the wild, weird, and often hilarious world of tourist steam railroads. You'll get a front row seat to the ins and outs of this truly unique business. So grab your ticket, hold on to your sense of humor, and join us for a ride into the unpredictable world of steam. This is Off the Rail.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

I don't have a green pen. We don't have a timer today. We have both production people. I put times out, and what I get from you all is we're just rolling. We're just rolling because we gotta be done in an hour. Welcome to Off the Rails with Rowdy and Bethan. It's we didn't do a sound check either. We didn't do a sound check. Is your thing even on? Yours isn't even blinking green, is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

It's right here. Look, it's right there. I am on. I am in I am in influencer mode. So how are we doing? Not good. We're both freaking unhinged.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

It's really not good. I am so beyond exhausted and burnt out. I'm not having the mental breakdown I did last year because that one was pretty bad. What's that? It's close.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Uh but one more bridge lights on fire, you will.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Yeah, so it is Tuesday. We had a bridge on fire less than 48 hours ago. Um I worked their Pride booth Saturday, which was a long, long, long day. Um how are the cats doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:51

They're still here.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

George and Monty. I George got some pets this morning.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Uh, your mom's around, so they're happy.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

There's a third one sneaking around. We've decided to name him Rommel.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Okay, so when we had started, we have shop cats. How long have we had the shop cats? A year and a half? Too long. Two years. So we kept having rodent issues. So I went to the regional animal shelter of King County and adopted two cats from their barn cat program. And initially we were brainstorming ideas. And this is a recurring theme. What flavor of Tism do you have? Trains, Titanic, World War II. Um, we had initially said we want trained killers, we want vicious trained killers, and I believe we were gonna go with Himmler and Gring. Yeah. And then we realized that that would hit the internet at some point, and then there were a lot of like euphemisms the Germans used to describe the people that they committed mass genocide on, and this was gonna hit the internet. Um this is also productions letting us know that this is also gonna hit the internet. But we decided it wasn't a good idea because it would be taken the wrong way. So we named them Bernard Montgomery. Bernard goes by Monty and George S. Catton. George goes by George. Um initially Georgie was the friendly one.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Now he's not. Now he's not, and Monty's an arrogant pompous prick.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yeah, Monty gets whatever he wants. Monty is a pain in the butt, but he's far friendlier. So the cats are better than we are. Um we're tired. Yeah, and we're really sick of people. People, but not necessarily the internet.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Um people. The internet.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

It's not good to be sick of people when you work in tourism and hospitality because inherently what we do is try and please people.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

You just hide from the people, is what you do. So you don't go.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

I have no makeup on, I have not combed my hair. It's still wet. Anyway, so I am wearing clean clothes and I have showered. So the whole the 70 got done, and it was just like And Chrissy was submitted. Do you know I'm still having nightmares just about every other night that I didn't actually submit Chrissy?

SPEAKER_02 4:16

I'm not sure I'm having nightmares almost every other night of our fan club trying to figure out another reason to turn us into the FRA.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Um I thought I was over the bridge burning nightmares, but we might be. We might be back there. Okay, so that's enough of our introduction and welcome to Off the Rails. Um, this today's episode is part True Crime Podcast. And what we mean by that, what I mean by that, we're not gonna Okay, I I printed out notes this week, because last week we went off the rails without notes. Yeah. I did not curate these notes. We are not going to say everything on these notes to the general public. These are the notes of all of the incidents that have occurred over the last two years.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Subjected to an escalating series of threats.

SPEAKER_03 5:03

Um, these this is my own internal investigation on all of the incidents. I have not typed up an incident report from the latest one yet. So, what I am looking for, I need I we need the internet to help us. If you know someone that has a true crime podcast and resources to spend devoted to doing some true investigative journalism, and I'm not talking like a one-page article. I'm talking this could be an easily fascinating 10-part series.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

There's like damn near 50 pages of notes here.

unknown 5:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 5:37

Oh, there's the manifesto.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

No, that's that's that's that's the note after the manifesto. That's the note after the manifesto. Okay. We're gonna go in order. I am called everything with at the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 5:50

Not in that note. That was before. Um, so when we say that there is no shortage of material here, in fact, if we were to tell you people, you people. I know, you people, the internet, about this series of stuff, it would be so incredulous that no one would believe it. If it was a TV show, people would say it was well, it would make a damn good TV show, but people would say it was too contrived. It's like when the TV show gets to the third season and they're running out of content, so it just gets more and more ludicrous. Yeah. That's where we're at. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

I mean, I've never in my life thought that I would actually hear all branches of law enforcement say we're not gonna do a thing to help you.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Okay. So I am going to say a few things. We're gonna be careful what we say.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

You got 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

I'm looking at my watch, which is no, you literally just said we didn't have a timer. Production said we didn't.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

When you get to the eight, you're done.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

I'm very surprised you can count in fives.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 7. It's that one's easy. It's when you get threes and nines and stuff like that. Yeah, stuff shut up.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Roseburg, Oregon, or education. Wow. Let's give you a round of applause. Yeah. What I know you can do is quote just about every Rogers and Hammerstein musical. Would you like to do Kiss Me Kate? No. South Pacific? No. Okay, so let's talk about this.

SPEAKER_02 7:27

Though I wish the pictures of when we did South Pacific still existed because we had my dad and I had that stage decorated like it was an island in the South Pacific, because that tickled his task big time, and the Jeep was center stage.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

And you're nothing like a nothing at all. So um I'm going to preface this by saying um we are in a rural area. There are the Etonville Police Department, is the only local police department. We cover, our route covers two counties um Pierce and Lewis County. So the Nisqually trestles, the dividing line. So last year's major trestle arson happened in Lewis County. Um, Saturday's attempt happened in Pierce County. So when things happen, we're dealing with different jurisdictions. Um Pierce County has well, so both counties, this is a rural area on the outskirts of both counties, and they do not have regular patrols. No. And there's not a lot of resources that the law enforcement departments have.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

I mean, East County's got one deputy running around in it right now in an area that is five miles? In an area that is likely close to 150 square miles.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Yeah. Um deputy. Even if everything had gone really, really, really well with the investigations, there is undoubtedly not enough resources devoted to this. And I'm going to, I think everyone is going to say, but you were a railroad. Isn't, don't you fall under federal jurisdiction? Why isn't the FBI involved? Enter FBI. I emailed a bunch of people, as I always do every time something happens. I got a response from the FBI yesterday. I want to give a major shout-out to the FBI rail division out of Seattle because they are always, always, always responsive and willing to pick up the phone for me. So my latest question was asking if our common carrier status would affect how we are viewed by law enforcement. And he the answer was that while it may change how we are regulated by the FRA, it does not affect how federal and state criminal laws apply. Federally, there's a train wreck statute, 18 USC 1992. It's a federal crime in certain circumstances, knowingly and without lawful authority to wreck, derail, set fire to, disable railroad on-track equipment or mass transportation. There's a whole lot of other stuff. But the note here is that in order to charge this federal offense, the FBI needs approval from the United States Attorney's Office. As such, the FBI will not open a case for an incident that is unlikely to change in disposition, such as a non-terrorism crime without preliminary approval from the U.S. Attorney's Office. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington has a very high threshold for charging this type of crime, particularly when the state of Washington has a similar charge with a similar penalty. So my understanding is in order to get the FBI involved, they would need to be so certain that this was like an act of domestic terrorism, which, well, we probably believe the threshold is so high for that proof that they're not able to assume jurisdiction and devote a ton of resources to this. The state of Washington, RCW, 81.60 or 81.60.070 malicious injury to railroad property, largely leaves reads the same way about all of the things that are illegal on a railroad. And this is the most common substitution crime in Washington state for the federal train wreck statute, is it does not require prosecutor approval to investigate. And the only intent element to prove is that the statute requires that the act be done with the intent to endanger safety. This crime must be investigated and prosecuted at the state level. For your railroad, this would mean Lewis County andor Pierce County Sheriff's Office. Malicious injury to railroad property is a Class B felony under RCW 9A.20.021. As far as trespass offenses go, if your railroad and right of way do not transit through federal property, trespass offenses are likely limited to the state of Washington RCW, criminal trespass misdemeanor offenses, RCW burglary felony offenses for entering one of your trains. And they have to be investigated and prosecuted at the state level. So for us, again, that is the Lewis County or Pierce County Sheriff's Office. So that is my email from the FBI. Everyone keeps asking about FBI involvement. We really appreciate the response, but it's not great news for us. So it was been the response from Lewis County. No, we're gonna go through this. I have a timeline. I have a timeline, we're gonna go through. That was your first five minutes. Okay, so October 13th, 2024 is when we first started documenting incidents. There were incidents that occurred prior to this date, but we there were greased rails on our rail cycle route. There was a um attempted fire, we believe in the steam locomotive cab, um, intruders on the property, but up until this point, we it's not that we weren't documenting it. We weren't assuming there was a string of a three-page string of maybe it's four pages, of activity. Um October 13th and 14th, we received multiple emails from unverifiable senders with a bunch of different names that were expressing a lot of emotional distress over the train horn noise. On October 16th, I responded, or rather, I actually responded the next day on October 15th. Um, and I responded personally. I responded with, hey, this is how you can do a quiet zone exemption for a town. The railroad can apply for that, the town can. Um in certain emails, they had said that we were disrupting nap time and that thing for their kids, and I had responded that I have three young kids.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Oh, yeah, that was for the daycare in LB that doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Yeah, I was I was summarizing. It was um one, two, three, four, four emails on the 13th and 14th. Um, and I responded, and then um by October 16th, they responded to me with personal insults, moral accusations and feelings about me as a mother. So I mean, we can go back here a couple pages and read uh exactly what they said, but um, well, let's I'm not gonna read them all because I want to leave investigators some um something to look at.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

I'll save you the the the look for it because I already glanced at it. It it's uh, you know, they hope that your child's children have a miserable life.

SPEAKER_03 15:46

Um yeah, it's uh let's see. Um I responded, thank you for reaching out, sharing your concern about the train horn. Um I have a three-year-old and I also have twins that just turned one. I certainly appreciate the importance of sleep. I understand how disruptive noise can be. Um the Federal Railroad Administration mandates us to do this, and then I sent a link to the quiet zone exemption with a suggestion of how to accomplish that.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Um, so I thought it was a fairly um what I so anyway, um story short, it they didn't take it very well.

SPEAKER_03 16:24

Yeah, a horrible example. Better mother.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Kids deserve to die.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, that we hope my kids get I served the devil of greed, and I'm willing to sacrifice an entire community's happiness. Um, my children will grow up to hate me. Hopes that they all get cancer and die. Yeah. It wasn't a the responses weren't super nice.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

This so you know, everybody, when this goes, when we retire, this is all gonna go in the archives of the museum and be a display. The battle of MRSR. I mean, it it quite literally.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

When we retire, you and I can spend two decades writing a book with all of the stuff that we don't say on the internet. I know the whole series. The last podcast episode I gave you shit about your online presence, but there's a lot of things we don't say on the internet. There's a lot of more so anyway, December 22nd.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

And if I do say on the internet, I have asked respectively if I can cause shit on the internet, and you either say yes or no.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

December, December 22nd, uh, 2024. It was our second to last night of the Polar Express. Would you like to give an overview? Since I'm from my perspective, let me I was up, my twins, again, I do understand the importance of sleep because I really haven't had any in the last three years. Um I was up with one of my twins feeding, I think both of them, I don't know which I am I know that I am a terrible mother. Uh late night feedings blend together at some point. Yeah. Um so I was on my phone while I was, you know, feeding a baby at one in midnight, something like that. Uh-huh. And I got a text from Rowdy that said, call 911, get them here ASAP, and it didn't say who. So I tried to call back and I was like, is this an injury? Is this a law enforcement situation? What are we doing? So god dang Mexican standoff is what it was. So you want to tell me about December 22nd, 2022?

SPEAKER_02 18:33

I can do it in a very quick. Uh I saw a guy prowling the fence with the flashlight, and I thought that it was my mother in a container at first.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

You were shutting down the train very late at night.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Very late at night. It was like 11:30. And I went to go up to see if it was mom and whatnot. And then something in the back of my mind said, go over to the cabin and get a gun. And so I did. And then when I went to go look for the flashlight again, which I thought was my mother.

SPEAKER_03 19:00

This is on museum property? This is on museum property. Not Railroad property.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

And so uh I oh Shay. She went she went to bed, and then I hear something behind me, and it's a guy inside the cab of the Alco trying to blow it up.

SPEAKER_03 19:15

And you flashed a light on him, because I've recounted the story and listened to you recount it a million times for law enforcement. You flashed a light on him, told him to get down. He was in the cab of the elco or whatever. Well, he said that the he said that he was going to he was blowing up the locomotives.

SPEAKER_02 19:37

Well, it's he said he was gonna blow up the locomotive and that I should be very scared of him and all kinds of other stuff because the number of locomotives that he'd blown up at Union Pacific, and of course because I was exhausted, tired, and didn't give a fly in at that point. I looked at him and said, We must not have done a very good job because it's not been in the news. And so then he pulled something out of his belt and pointed it at me. I don't know what it was, so I shot at him.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

No, you didn't shoot at well, you should have, maybe I shot in his general direction.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Told him that's what I got. He said, you know, a bunch of shit to me and and all that other kind of stuff. And then I finally was able, in the lack of cell phone service that we have, I was finally able to get a call into 912.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Well, so and at this point, I was calling, there were other guys sleeping on site. So I called it everybody. Everyone. So I got through the one of them and then said, I don't know what's going on with Rowdy, but you should probably get a friend and go investigate.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

The long and the short of it is I was on the on the phone with 911, and he tried to make his escape by heading towards the museum, and I knew that everybody was over there sleeping, and so I told him verbally, no, if you go that way, you are going to die.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

And then that's when he said you were gonna meet God, and he said, I don't believe in God anyway.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Well, when when the phone There was a lot more political dive tribe. Look, you know, we got you got six minutes to tell the end of this. So we weren't doing timers. So, well, we do, because we got a meeting at 11:30, it's a 15-minute drive down there. Anyway. I thought the meeting was here. Anyway, go ahead. Anyway, so 911 hears me say, if you go that way, you're gonna die.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Production, can you make sure that the meeting is here at 11:30? And then the phone call dropped. Yeah, so to their credit, Lewis County did respond really quickly that.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

If I would have known that they were actually gonna respond that freaking quickly, I would have kept the guy there. At the very least.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Yeah, and at this point we didn't know what we didn't know. We hadn't linked the emails to this yet or anything else. Um four months later, the bridge burned down. Well, no, hold on. So the next day, it's there was a sign left on our gate that said, do not confront trespassers with guns.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

To which I walked out there with a Sharpie and wrote underneath it, don't try to blow up my shit.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

And that did go a little bit viral on the local community pages. And then we had people. Uh February 1st, there was a manifesto left on our gate in a Ziploc bag. We did not open it and read it. It was many, many pages. Um, we reported it to the sheriff's office, Lewis County Sheriff's Office. They took several days, if not a week, to collect it, but they did collect it and apparently eventually run forensics on it.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

That's after they contaminated the evidence. Let's uh let's not bring up their investigation in the Gifford Pinshaw and the massive lawsuit against them right now.

SPEAKER_03 22:34

Um February 16th, we received another email. February 17th, I sent an email to the Lewis County Sheriff's Office citing escalating threats, requesting law enforcement. Escalating law enforcement. So that was February 17th, 2025. I did receive a response in a phone call. But April 30th, there was the bridge fire. June. We we had put cameras up.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

You don't have the I I guess it's a totally different thing, but you don't have the awkward situation where Rowdy found a dead child molester alongside the railroad and they tried to look at me like I I did not put all of the dead people we found on the railroad. But that was right next to the bridge, and they were looking at me like, hmm.

SPEAKER_03 23:24

I I didn't put them all on the I didn't put the series of dead bodies on the incident list because they weren't directly related. But again, it could be a really good 10-part podcast if someone wants to do it. Um so April 30th, there was a bridge fire. Um July 8th or 9th, there was a because at this point we do have cameras up, I am not gonna comment about all of our security measures on the internet. People keep making suggestions. Why on earth would I comment? And like confirm what our security measures are. Come on, y'all. Security measures are we're gonna take them to the bus stop. Yeah. So there was a note left on our neighbor's gate, probably because some of the cameras are obvious. Um and very. Yeah, and uh the poor family was very, very traumatized.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

But now they are fully They're imports from Britain and they are fully exercising their Second Amendment rights at this point.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Yeah, July 10th, we received some disturbing phone calls. July 23rd of 2025, there was another fire at Boxcar. Um there wasn't no results from the investigation. There's frequent trespassing on the railroad, which is the next segment. September 2nd, I emailed the FBI, Washington State Patrol, um the AFT, the FRA, and about 20 of 8 showed up and got attacked by Monty. I didn't put that on here either. Um, and I requested reassignment of investigative uh get investigative authority to state and federal agencies, coordinated threat mitigation security strategy for the upcoming holiday season and a full federal review under statutes governing rail infrastructure protection and domestic terrorism. Not much happened. October 13th, I sent another follow-up after there was a fire on OCSR. And at this point, we had appeared on a few anarchist websites. Um can't make this shit up, you all.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

You're a Quaker. Yes. Means you're gonna go out, you're gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Which is even funnier because the guy you had at standoff was talking about how we're you're violent and misogynist, and the company is part of the patriarchy, and you were like, uh, bro, like you know. Yeah, like seriously, the bitch that runs this is in fact female. Uh anyway. Um, so I also I've communicated on and off with the governor's office, um, Maria Cantwell's office, Guzen Kamperez's office, Patty Murray's office, several people at Watchdot, and the UTC. And as we're two minutes away from the debt. Hold on! I'm summarizing it. I've got like one column left. And then there was a um the Lewis County Sheriff's Office has traced the IP address of all of the threatening emails. They left a business card on a gate, apparently, saying we'd like to talk to you. The email stopped at that point. But on Sunday, we did have another fire at Boxcar with multiple incineration points. Huge, huge, huge shout out and props to self-pierce fire and rescue for calling me immediately, responding quickly. We are practiced enough that I mean Matt Medford's a great guy. Um, but we got through this and I was like, okay, well, Raddy Corey on the way. Uh they've got a high elf. We need the transport people. Which way you want to, you know, we're getting very quick at this incident response nonsense.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Yeah. If Pierce County would have been in charge of that frickin' bridge that we lost last year, we wouldn't have lost the bridge.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

They they uh mobilized super, super quickly. They and you know, as the fire chief said, we we know how bad it can get. And the Pierce County Sheriff Office did show up. Rowdy is trying to be healthy again, mostly so he fits in his World War II reenactment stuff. It's not reenactment, it's airsoft. You know, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Reenactments for losers.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

I production right here. I'm going to request a photo. I'm gonna send you several photos of Rowdy dressed up. Playing dress up in costume. Um anyway.

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Calvin couldn't find me the last go around, so I must be doing something right.

SPEAKER_03 27:49

The long and the short of it is I have reached out to every single elected official. Several have visited the site. I've reached out to every single law enforcement agency.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Um, what else do you do? You know what's concerning about it is that you know, we're we're up to hauling about 80,000 people when real cycles not, you know, in full gear. When real cycles in full gear, that number goes up. This kind of stuff is going on, and no one's thinking about no one in law enforcement and the politics of this is thinking about that number of people's safety. I don't think it's 100%. Well, we don't know what to do, so we're not gonna do that. We don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

We don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Instead of sitting back and saying, uh wow, you guys are hauling live people instead of freight. Maybe we might want to really think about this. Nah, it's just that we don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

I it would be hard for me to um I don't know. The amount of time I spend uh the number of nights I have lost sleep over this. Uh so I mean that is inherently the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize and make people lose their mind. Congratulations, it's working.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Maybe for you. Yeah, I I'm ready. Bring it. Rowdy does live on site. I do live on site. Okay. And as Calvin can attest, I'm getting pretty goddamn sneaky.

SPEAKER_03 29:24

Okay. So the next segment, so that is our um, that is our pitch.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

If you know anyone that wants to do some investigative journalism that actually We're gonna get into the trespassing part of it where we talk about digging plunge pits along the railroad.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

I have so many ideas, I'm so excited to I am going to um run some trespasser deterrent ideas by you live on the podcast for the first time. But can you summarize the issue at Boxcar?

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Boxcar and the little Michelle River Bridge. So I So that's in Eatonville.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

Give some contacts for the people outside the area. You tell me to talk and then you I want to do that when I grow up.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Can I put the spray bottle top on this and when you start to say something I just spray you?

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Yeah, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

Um outside of Eatonville, there's these waterfalls and a canyon. You know, it's very a very popular place to hike to for the longest time to get to these waterfalls. You had to go down onto the railroad, across the railroad bridge, and down this very sketchy trail to get to the bottom of the waterfalls so that you can hang out and you know, plow your girlfriend or your boyfriend or whatever the hell it was you did down there. Mostly drugs back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

Now, the AI song out about drinking with Chris at Box Car Canyon. Oh wow. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 30:49

Um, there is uh now a trail that the city of Etonville has. Bud Blanchard Trail. Bud Blanchard Trail that goes up to the bottom of the waterfalls, and no one knows it exists, so everybody goes to what people have labeled as the trailhead, which goes across our railroad down in there. Now, for context, it's about once a month on average. There is a Coast Guard helicopter flying over those falls. Coast Guard. Yeah, they're the people that do the ex the medical extract. Yep. I want to fact check you, but go ahead. There's a usually it's Coast Guard helicopter because they got the basket that they can lower down in there to put somebody in it to pull it them out.

unknown 31:30

All right.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

What else? I'm not local. It's a it's about once a month. It's actually twice a month, but if you do the average, it's once a month. Um, so with us actively installing ties out there and getting ready to go get the three big objects, which we have picked up, amongst other things, and you know, going to the quarry to get rock and not having a truck and all that other kind of stuff. Corey and the maintenance away crew run into at least 20 or 30 people a day in these spots that are trying to get across the railroad, actively trespassing, they're confronted about it, told, hey, you're trespassing, you can't be here, and then the following week they're back.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

The other day, eight people passed them while they had equipment on the bridge and were working on the bridge.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

The locomotive was sitting on the bridge, and a guy and his dog, who is a repeat offender, tried to walk across the bridge, walk across the locomotive to get to the other side because he uses the railroad as his bike path to just walk, go for his walks every day. Uh, there is a there is a person that has decided to carve a trail from their house into the side of the ride-of-way, damaging it up onto the tracks to go up so that they can go up and sit in their lounge chairs or whatever the hell they're doing at Box Car Canyon. And he's also the guy that happened to call in the uh fire the other day, which I'm suspicious. If you're listening, I'm a dude.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

Okay. Um, so trespassing there has been a major majority.

SPEAKER_02 33:11

It's a huge issue. And then so yesterday, well, no, it's not yesterday. Day before yesterday, when I was up there dealing with this situation with the bridge, I'm talking to the deputy, and it's like, hey, how do we combat this? What do we do? And for all intents and purpose, his his he did the exact same thing the FBI did, which was sit back and say, Well, Pierce County's gotta want to prosecute it and they're not gonna want to prosecute it. So you're kind of on your own. The best thing that you can do is each time you run into a trespasser, is have one of your guys call non-emergency so that way at least a paper trail gets created.

SPEAKER_03 33:50

Which is gonna be, and you told him that's gonna be every twenty minutes.

SPEAKER_02 33:53

That's how I told him. So when they're down here working, it's gonna be every 20 or 30 freaking minutes. And you know, all we're doing is just bogging down dispatch at that point just to be able to create a paper trail, just so that people can start to see how big of a problem we have here.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

And I mean, people die there regularly without the railroad running. It's downgrade on a blind curve, it's in a canyon with a waterfall, so you can't hear the can't hear the whistle. You can't hear the train going. And we we've tested that. I remember a few years ago, like the train was there, and I'd yeah, I don't, whatever we were doing, and it was like I was there. Um and we were testing it. We had radios, I knew, you know, but and I was like, yeah, I I I cannot hear that whistle. And it was right there.

SPEAKER_02 34:41

Um You can't do anything on any of the local Facebook pages down there because there's a massive amount of toxicity between the community of Etonville and the railroad. I mean, you try to post anything on Eatonville heads up about it, it gets deleted. I mean, there were a lot of comments in that post about the fire Sunday that would have been good to know what had happened because people were saying, hey, this is what I heard, this is what I saw, and one of the admins took it down. So on the drive down with production, we've dug pungy pits, they've just filled them back in.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

Literally, literally, literally. Can you explain what one is?

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Okay, so we didn't go full Viet Cong by you know smearing shit all over the sticks, but we dug giant pits and then put sharpened sticks pointed up in the bottom of it.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

We have signs, they've been stolen, they've been shot, we put signs up all the time. Our sign budget is ample. Yeah. Um, so on the way down, production had said, hey, what if we like there are a lot of people that have died there? What if we put memorials up and put signs up? So like you're trespassing, here's a list of people that have died, like rest of peace. They've pulled 10 bodies out of the bottom of Boxcar Canyon in the last four years. So um I was like, that that could be a good deterrent to and then and then my mind went elsewhere. So here's a proposal, Rowdy. Jared can production is Jared. You've all met him. Uh he can rig up a solar outdoor battery power sound system. And what I want to do, I'll turn the volume up so that people can hear this.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

They have one of you to die, Dion.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

We'll record our we'll record our even better thing. No, no, no. Let me cook for a second. Let me cook. So we looked at Claxon, we looked at air raid sirens, I looked at nuclear fallout um sirens.

SPEAKER_02 36:53

I have an air raid siren FYI.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

I'm just okay, sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Usually on the Jeep.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

I was looking up on eBay, but um, and we play this on loop every five minutes, so that it is so annoying and not relaxing to be there.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

You know, I got a better idea.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Jared told me I could not go into a nail salon and pay them to narration and you know, at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean when we're first introduced to Jack Sparrow.

SPEAKER_02 37:20

Yeah, and he's he's going by the guys that are hanging from the rock and it says pirates ye be warned. Yeah. We got a bunch of really realistic dummies and hang them from the trees and the bridges that just say trespassers, ye be warned.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

Okay, let's do that too.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

That doesn't prevent us from having a full-blown alert system. Like, attention, trespasser, but there's the internet lied to you.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Calvin can attest to this as well. There are airsoft claymore mines that we can buy that are non-lethal that if you trespass, you get blasted.

SPEAKER_03 37:54

I mean, the sound I am sort of like actually. I think that's just gonna happen. I don't need to know about the other stuff. Productions whispering.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

Dummies get onto some dummies. We need some dummies to hang from the trees with signs to say this is what happens to trespassers.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

If you put them low enough, people will steal them.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

People, oh, they're worried about people stealing them. I don't know. If it looks real enough, they might just call they might just call the police. I was just gonna say, and then the police show up and we sit back and say, Well, we finally got you here. They're not real, but this is what we want to do to the people that tell us to off on our own property.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Uh how are we doing on time there, buddy?

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Oh, you're you're we're good. We're we got we got a whole nother probably 25 minutes before we have to shut this sucker down.

SPEAKER_03 38:41

So Okay. So trust trespassing on the railroad.

SPEAKER_02 38:47

I you know the thing of it is the the the thing that pisses me off the most about it is is is the audacity of these freaking people. That they sit back and go, yeah, we know, and there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, that the one that one gal straight up basically told Corey to go and screw himself. And I mean, the thing is it's not We've been doing this for 30 years and no one's ever had a problem with it. Well, you've been trespassing for 30 freaking years, and no one's ever said anything about it, and we're trying to say something about it, so we save your life, is what we're doing.

SPEAKER_03 39:14

And I think that that is the core of it. It's not just us being cranky. It's none of us want to accidentally kill someone. Nah. And that is absolutely what is going to happen.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Oh, well, the conversation that you and I keep having, how do we do this? How do we do this? It's like we're gonna have to actually kill somebody before anybody actually takes any seriousness.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

That is our fear, is how much more can you document? And to be clear, I'm not really I'm not worried about the safety of the tourist train because we have track inspections, we you know, everyone's out there. I mean, it's that's a well-petrolled area. I'm not worried about the safety of the people on board. Other than, you know, anytime you have an event for the public, right? I don't want people to trip and fall or slam their finger at the end.

SPEAKER_02 39:55

I mean, at this point we've we've trained ourselves up.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

You might need that. Um I am worried about the safety of people along the railroad, particularly if, you know, we're the dog chasing our tail, if we catch it and you know, we we get some of this tra freight traffic, that's 20 freight cars a day out of here, plus the empty is back, plus whatever car storage, plus whatever maintenance away trains.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

And and tourist trains and all that, because the tourist trains aren't gonna stop. If anything, there's gonna be more of them. I mean, you know, it it's gonna get very active very quick. And there's one thing that we all know about John Q public, and that is that they are dumb.

SPEAKER_03 41:26

I mean, we're at our wits' end.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

I mean, and you can you can you can say it. It's okay to call the public dumb. They're not stupid, they're just dumb.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

Uh it's a group mentality thing. Well, it's a thing. The big boy is the person who's gonna be able to do it. We're a herd animal.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

People think that everybody's an individual thinker and all that. We are sheep. We are a freaking herd animal. One person does it, everybody does it.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um particularly between 1938 and 1945, but we'll just leave that out of it.

SPEAKER_03 41:57

So we're at our wit's end. Um, there are so many suggestions, signage, cameras. I mean best cameras, I'm not gonna talk about all the people.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Go get cameras. You know what they do with the cameras? They take them.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Uh we have cameras stolen. Um, you have different cameras, right? Because there's different access. So you've got SIM cards on some, you've got solar power that uploads to a cloud and other, you've got cell phone connectivity issues. Um we have cameras, people. We've we've done this. But cameras are we've done this. Cameras are not perfect. Cameras are not the solution. Um, and then if you do have a giant fire, that camera's going down with it. And what where do we have cell phone service on our railroad?

SPEAKER_02 42:39

The problem is in the state of Washington, a friend of mine had this happen with a dump truck. Yeah. He had the guy on camera stealing all his shit out of his dump truck and wrecking the truck. And they pro they they tried to prosecute, they caught the guy, and what did the state do? Well, you can't this is not admissible in court because you left the truck out there for him to do that with.

SPEAKER_03 43:03

And that's and then we get into this, like, well, it's a nuisance attraction. Yep. So what do you do? We put fencing up, it's cut. Yep. Um, and also, like, we're gonna fence, how are we gonna fence 36, 33 miles of railroad? I mean, we we we dig ditches, we put signs up there. We put up the cameras.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

There's we put landmine signs on the fence, and then we go Urwin Rommel and just mine the ever-loving hell out of the right-of-way. And then we're gonna get sued. No, because they they crossed the fence. We warned them. It's hey, you come across the fence, you're gonna get blown up. We're still gonna get sued. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Can I advise against that? Production.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Production is currently advising against that, and would like you to know that Rowdy is in fact kidding.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Is Rowdy in fact kidding?

SPEAKER_03 43:57

Yes, Rowdy is kidding. Um Okay, in the news. Okay, I guess we're just moving on. Um Is my exhaustion coming through? Well, we talked about the trespassing. We talked about the trust. Let me let me comb through my pile of you know, we've got pictures of NFS. I mean, you name it, we got it.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

I mean, you know, they're just gonna sh you know. The best one ever was when we went out to get the the camera that we thought was, you know, up high enough that no one was gonna mess with it, and there was a bullet hole right through the middle of it.

unknown 44:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

Yeah. And not everywhere has cell phone service. And you think that like, oh, just get something that uploads to the cloud. Triggered. Yeah. The helpful suggesti. I mean, and that's and genuinely, like, we need suggestions because we don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 44:58

But the suggestions need to be on the law enforcement side of things, of how do you proactively get law enforcement to actually take the situation seriously.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

And I I did email Pierce County yesterday and say, hey, uh I'm checking to see if there's a response yet. How do you want us to handle this? We understand that you are under resourced. What course of action do you want us to take? I haven't had a response yet. It hasn't, I mean, I just sent the email last night. So we'll see. In the news?

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Uh Trains magazine.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

So Trains Magazine. I don't have you seen this? Did you see this on the and I saw a lot of the blowout of it? Trains magazine is renewing its focus to bring you the best rail-related magazine and number one rail industry news site in North America. What's ahead on the track? A more immersive print and digital experience with exclusive features, video enhancements, blah blah blah. As part of these efforts, the September 2026 and February 2027 issues will appear exclusively in our digital formats on Trains.com. So two of the 12 annual subscription, you know, magazines will now be exclusively digital. What do you see as the future of Trains Magazine, Rowdith?

SPEAKER_02 46:17

I'm completely and totally going away from print because it's such a niche thing. I mean, if I do anything with Trains Magazine, I don't go down to the store and buy a magazine. I buy it when we're in it. You know, that that's about it. You know, I got a copy of when the 70 was on the cover of it. You know.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

Bob Harbison's cover photo.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

Uh-huh. Yeah, we hear about that one all the time. Shut up, Bob. And it, but you know, it it's kind of like newspapers. Why, why buy a whole ass newspaper that you're gonna have to carry around, you know, figure out what's the hell. I mean, you know, newspaper's great when you got a wood stove because you got something to light your fire with, but other than that, it's it's a whole bunch of, well, I'm just gonna buy this for the sports section or something.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

It's sort of well, I don't know. Maybe I'm the rare bird that this is a newspaper because then I read it cover to cover, and I don't pick and choose the articles I read because then your algorithm on the internet gets so folk and then you're forced to read all of it.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Yeah. But that's a me issue. What I find funny is that all these people that were complaining about not being able to get the magazine went straight to the internet on their computers and started to complain about it. And I'm sitting back thinking, you just went to your computer to complain about this. So you're on your computer, so how hard is it just to have your subscription beat? You just jump on your computer to read it. Well, you can read it. People are trained to not want to read it on your iPad, you can read it on your whatever, wherever, and you don't have to worry about cartoning around that physical piece of whatever. I mean, it comes boils down to to me is that times change, things are changing.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Yeah, I mean, people are also don't like the people for stuff, paywall, you know, boo, but also how do you afford journalism? I mean, all I was talking about today is like, how do you get an investigative journalist? They're not around anymore. And what is the budget and the timeline you have? It's I mean, journalism is dying.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Alternative media. Look at what we're doing right now. I was in Podunk, BFE, Kettle Falls, Callville, Washington, and there were trains magazines on, you know, monthly trains magazines on the magazine rack every single freaking month. Now, if we're that far out and excluded, how much is trains paying to paper the country that way? That's a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:35

I mean it's maybe they can put that money towards other stuff. Like, you know, people go up and sit back and go, well, trains doesn't give very many cars anymore. Well, no shit, because they're supporting an archaic form of media.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Yeah. I mean it's it's that's a I mean, like subject of a different podcast. How do you how do you communicate to the public? People are burnt out on social media. How I how do I get to them, right? Turn rowdy loose. I try and be engaging and sort of relatively non-controversial on the internet. We have a podcast, right? We're we're exploring different media, um, productions working on a Spotify ad, podcast ads, ads on dating apps.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

Um OnlyFans.

SPEAKER_03 49:19

No.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

No. Only 30% of OnlyFans is dedicated to her homework and pornographic material. The rest of it is. Have you seen the gal on there? Her is uh um OnlyPans is what her handle is, and it's a grandma that does nothing but show you how to cook. I'm so exhausted. Yeah. You only see me once in a while now.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

But I talk to you for five hours a day.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

No, yesterday you didn't. That was mom. Um, questions and concerns. We've got 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

Um, I don't there's a lot of concerns, folks. I'm just gonna go to the uh we do are you out of order? I don't know. You're I just this is just how you handed it to me. Sorry, we're just going through all the investigation pages of our own internal documents here. I know that the people listening can't see the maybe you can hear the crumpling of the paper because you gave me that particular piece of it. No, I copied and pasted the whole thing. I think you just got it messed up because we took the FBI one out.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

No, I freaking this is laying here the way that Beth and Mahr handed it to me.

SPEAKER_03 50:35

Productions telling us not to fight and reminding us that the people that are listening, not on video, can't see this. It's there. Ah, for crying out. But I hope you heard the rustling of all of the papers of this trigger. She's gone, she's in orbit.

SPEAKER_02 50:55

I didn't get the lasso on her foot to bring her back to reality.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

We got a hot air balloon? No, that'd be a kite. A kite?

SPEAKER_02 51:03

New guy. Who's the bricklayer dude? That's Eric.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

Eric Cole. Eric Cole. Navy veteran. Mm-hmm. Started volunteering here. We eventually did the same thing we did with Chris and said.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

Very uh very high up on the shit list. But it's okay.

unknown 51:19

What?

SPEAKER_03 51:19

And said, uh, if you're gonna spend this much time here, we should probably pay you. Um he's pretty funny. He primarily works maintenance away with Jackson and Corey and does conductor stuff. Uh he and Jackson share a brain cell.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Yeah. One's a positive IQ, the other's a negative IQ, and they balance each other out. They are the neutral. And they swap places every day. Or every hour or every few minutes, depending upon what they're doing.

SPEAKER_03 51:51

I think most railroad maintenance away departments could be described that way. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 51:57

Um, you get a lot done in a short time. Does anyone sleep? No. Do we look like we sleep? Good God. Nah. Um, no, it's the the they don't sleep. They're all everybody is usually wide awake thinking about all the stuff going on around here at any given point in time. Um, but they do only work eight to ten hours a day, most days. Uh there are a few in there that they work a lot longer.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Is eight to ten hours an option?

SPEAKER_02 52:27

For a long time there. We really well, for most of the 70, we were only working 40 hours a week, believe it or not. They were, I wasn't. I love a 40 hour a week. Wouldn't it be great? Um, but that's the point of focus and dedication and a well-oiled machine, and I wasn't gonna say that. Hyper focus. I was I was trying to figure out I was trying to figure out how the experts of the internet were would have described the situation.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

End up with a meat-eating Republican gun-toting buffoon.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

I am not a Republican. I am a free spirit in the political world. I identify with whoever is popular at the point.

SPEAKER_03 53:15

Vegetarian, Quaker, Mom of three. Yeah. It's not an ideal situation for either of us, just for the record.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

What is up with the typewriter? Well, so anyway, um, Christopher P. Wentz handwriting is so terrible that anytime he wants to do any kind of communication or fill out any kind of form or anything like that, he has to use the typewriter.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

Why doesn't he use a computer?

SPEAKER_02 53:46

We'll just he he it it's easier for him to use the typewriter.

SPEAKER_03 53:51

See the previous answer.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

Yep. Uh I love what you're doing with the titles. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_03 53:59

Thanks. Uh okay. So, mmm mmm. Idiots of railfanning, yes, I have a hand warmer because it's almost July and it's cold. Um, welcome to Washington. Idiots of Railfanning, incredibly toxic, awful, awful, awful Facebook group or whatever. I've I've tried to post an on I have had an anonymous post pending there, and it is the YouTube title of Pulson 70 Gets Wet. And it is a title in YouTube, and in it is Rowdy giving a thumbs up with corn in the background, and it's literally a corn video entitled Pulsan 70 Gets Wet. That can't make idiots of rail fanning, even if I submit the content.

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Jesus Christ. Y'all.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

Yes, the titles are intentionally.

SPEAKER_02 54:46

I I think that, you know, well, I have their own.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

And they're mine. Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 54:52

Uh huh. The idiots of rail fanning is exactly what it is. They're a bunch of idiots. I engage with them, so I'm an idiot too. I can't get my shit approved. Well, because you're not prolific enough on the internet. Five days ago. I never realized how tiny the dri the seven drivers of 70 are. Yeah, you could probably pull all the excursions at once and cut down on the wear and tear, but you might need to attach extra steel or iron to the engine to give it more traction. I also hope you're not in the path of the next Lahara from the volcano.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

Okay, so I want to answer the last part. Last year, when I was having my annual mental breakdown, which either usually occurs around July or something.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

You discovered that the safest place to be in the volcano the volcanic eruption is in Mineral.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

I was hope- I was like, I can't quit because then I'm a quitter, and that's no good. Um, but like I'm done with this. I want out, I want to spend time with my family, I want to spend time with my kids. And I was like, the solution here is a volcanic eruption. Because Mount Rainier is a volcano. And I looked at the Lahar path, and what is untouched? The railroad. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

It'll be zunder, but I mean, as long as we're here at night and it happens, we're we're fine.

SPEAKER_03 56:09

Yeah, you can answer the the the rest of the drivers of the 70.

SPEAKER_02 56:14

Believe it or not, the smaller they get, the more traction that it has. The taller they get, the less traction that it has. So when we're talking about the case, is that like a weight and a Yeah. There's a whole scientific thing. I'm not gonna go into that.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

I mean, we put brand new types of Bearsburg, Oregon education. Yeah, people. I'm stupid.

SPEAKER_02 56:32

Can you count multiples of one? Yes. One, two, three, four, five, six. All right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

SPEAKER_03 56:41

You only ever got up to two there.

SPEAKER_02 56:42

Uh-huh. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:43

But anyway. But we're trying to. All right. For those listening at home, Rowdy is using one finger on each hand to count. Yep. Imagine which.

SPEAKER_02 56:51

Um, but yeah, the the believe it or not, the taller that they get, it's not, it's a hell of a lot less slipper now after we turned them down to the last time they're going to be turned than it was when it had taller tires on it.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

Pulsing 70s, next 1472 is going to be a lot more expensive than this one.

SPEAKER_02 57:07

Yeah. Don't you just you just gave Brand X and the fan club a lot to go on there. I know this is pretty far afield from the bread and butter of actually running a railroad, but after the bridge fire, there was that Bachman special run of 7134 models. I know those were handmade, but would there be any interest from MRSR in doing a broader run as a fundraiser? They sold out pretty fast, and I imagine that either the 7134 or the 70 would sell reasonably well. That sounds like some bay that didn't get one.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Yeah, there weren't very many made.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

They only did like five or ten.

SPEAKER_03 57:45

Yeah, we don't have the one.

SPEAKER_02 57:46

They didn't do very many of them.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

We don't have the bandwidth. I I don't, as far as I know, um, are there 282 Mikados like on the market these days that are you have one? Yeah, it's old. Uh no, there is no.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

I don't think there's any 282 Mikados on the market. I don't know. Am I in the frickin' toy train shit? Again, production.

SPEAKER_03 58:06

Can you please put a picture of Rowdy up from the past week? I'll provide it. Uh please, right here. Yeah, toy train.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

I said toy train shit. You're into some. So the thing of it is, is our our buddies up north near Soquwami, they have a 924 model that they had, you know, custom made to be able to sell in the gift shop, and that run cost them a shit load of money. So that one's a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 58:32

Yeah, it's also a money up front. What's the return sort of thing? Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

How I mean you're talking about someone. You're talking about something that is extremely niche, and you're gonna have to run a lot of them. And we're not when I say a lot of money, it's six figures, is what they paid. Yeah. And they don't sell very well.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Yep. Um, who are our favorite commenters? Yes, uh, so do well, I think the broader question is do I let Rowdy read the comments? He has the internet, and I do not have parental controls on the museum at all times. So, yes, Rowdy has access to the comments and reads them. And stays silent most of the time. And typically stays silent. So he has a little bit more constraint than maybe you people give him credit for.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

Yeah, who's the one that nuked ahead of the torch a few weeks ago? I know you brought it up in the last podcast. I did. I'm gonna keep bringing it up. Because you're internet person, what you're gonna and then it's usually you, Mike. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:37

I do have some favorite commenters. Shout out, Jack Reed, Zachman. Whoever Mike the tea kettle guy is, I don't remember what your username is, but we got a thing going about the tea kettle in Etonville. You're pretty solid. Whoever the echo static guy is, there's an Iowa train. I don't know if it's train gay or train guy, I don't remember. Like, there's some there some of y'all are decent. Some of y'all are decent. Uh I don't think we need to answer the last question. How's your mental health?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:05

Ain't going good. It's been worse. We've taken the shooting each other with BB guns for fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:11

Not me.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Because you're the Quaker. No, you you did agree to be the medic.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:15

Yeah, I will. I I sort of want to I want to be whatever the equivalent of the medic, like going around with the flask is. Gotcha. St. Bernard. But I Jared, I don't want to production. I don't want to be a St. Bernard, because I don't want to like dress up as a St. Bernard and wander around the railroad, because I don't I don't want to make idiots of rail fanning that way. Uh thank you so much for tuning in to Off the Rails with Rowdy and Vether. It's been a pleasure. Y'all, thanks for the support.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:43

Bye now.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

Well, hello Calvin. How are we doing, my friend? I'm well. Um that was quite a ride. We just finished wrapping episode 18. Um we're just here to do a sponsorship plug because it takes money to make these things to buy the electricity for the lights. Calvin um and I also feed a family on this wage. So uh we would really like it if you have a business. Or you just love the podcast. For like as little as $250, you can sponsor an episode and we'll say something nice about you. Because unlike the talent, um we know how to talk nice to people.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

Exactly, exactly. Get your stuff in, even if it's a small business, quick snippet. We'd love to love to get your name out there, love to get some stuff out there for you. Um, you know, you never know unless you try it. So come on, send it over. We'll get you a spot, we'll get you plugged in. Yeah, go to Mount RainierRailroad.com and uh look us up.

unknown 1:01:42

Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

And that wraps up this episode of Off the Rails. A huge thank you to our totally real, definitely not made up production crew. Sound design by Microphone, catering by Cornelius Cobb, track maintenance provided by Rusty Switches, and marketing brilliance courtesy of souvenir. I'm your host, reminding you to keep your hands inside the train at all times, because around here, things always go off the rails.