This year, the Easter Bunny will arrive in Kutztown by train, announced Mike Bast, President of the Allentown and Auburn Railroad.
An Easter Bunny train will make the three mile, 40 minute trip to Topton and back March 28 and 29 and April 4 carrying passengers and the Easter Bunny, who will visit with each child and leave a small chocolate present.
The train will be made up of a diesel locomotive and three cabooses and will make the run each hour, on the hour from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on March 28 and April 4 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, March 29. Local historical societies will have booths at the station and will sell train-related accessories and gifts.
The Easter Bunny train is the first of several specialty train rides envisioned by Mike throughout the summer. Other plans include a firefly train July 11, a barbecue run August 29, and, in the fall, a pumpkin train and a fall foliage expedition. All of the trips will board at the Kutztown Railroad Station and will include a two-way trip to Topton.
The firefly run has been calculated to take place at the height of the mating season for the insects.
“Just about that time of year,” says Bast, “the air just above the fields around Topton are filled with fireflies. The tracks cut right through the fields without the distractions of other traffic and it will make a beautiful sight.”
On the barbecue run, the train will start in Kutztown and proceed to the Allentown and Auburn grounds, where a barbecue dinner under a tent will be catered by B3Q out of Pittston. Halloween will be ushered in with a ride through the autumn fields at harvest time. Each child on the train will receive a pumpkin as a souvenir.
The prime motivation for establishing the specialty runs for the Allentown & Auburn was the encouragement of the Kutztown Bicentennial Committee and the Kutztown Community Partnership, which was looking for ways to add to the celebration of the upcoming 200th anniversary of the community.
The railroad company itself evolved slowly in the mind of Bast. At the age of 11, he began volunteering and working on the train equipment owned by the Reading Company Technical and Historical Society. At age 15, he became the proud owner of a Reading Railroad caboose. Currently, at the age of 34, his company owns two locomotives, two passenger cars, four cabooses and a gondola car. He plans to renovate all the rolling stock and put it in the business of ferrying passengers on pleasure runs. Once established, he also hopes to begin hauling freight from Kutztown to Topton and from there, through Conrail, to the world.
Currently, the cabooses are passenger-ready. By this summer, the locomotive will sport a new paint job and one of the passenger cars will be renovated inside and out. The car was owned by one of the more upscale lines and was beautifully furnished with mahogany interiors and interior finish. Bast and crew plan to refinish and repaint the interior, renovate the outside, reupholster the seats, replace windows and carpet in time for the summer and fall excursions.
When asked how many people the company employed, he replied, “One, that’s me.”
All the others, he describes as friends and family.
“At any one time, there will be from one to 20 or so working on the equipment,” he says. The total number of people that work when they can numbers about 30, he estimates.
The Allentown and Auburn Railroad Company was first chartered in the early 1800s to haul freight between the two communities. A good bit of layout and stone work was done through the countryside before the company lost its funding and folded. The assets were eventually acquired by the Reading Railroad before ending up in the ownership of Bast and his partner, Peter Cole, of Andover, New Jersey. The Central Pennsylvania Rail Corporation, also owned by the two, does car and locomotive repair.
Tickets for the Easter Bunny train can me purchased by calling 570-778-7531. There is a charge. Free for children under the age of 3. Visit www.allnrr.com and on facebook at Allentown Auburn RR.
