Mars ‘railroad’ celebrates 10th birthday with record visitors
MARS — Lines spanned the Mars Area History and Landmarks Society on Friday, Aug. 18, for a chance to ride the Mars Shortline Railway on its 10th birthday.
“It’s a little bit busier today than it normally is,” volunteer Bob Lang said with a chuckle. “Usually we’ll have 200 to 250 people here on a Friday. Now it’s probably at least double that.”
Every Friday, June through October from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., volunteers from the borough’s historical society take visitors for a whirl on a scaled-down railway ride through painted towns and tunnels along Breakneck Creek.
Lang began laying the tracks in 2013 after helping at a similar railroad in Florida, and the site’s iconic “station” was erected just three years later.
“We built this in 2016, and we have parties here, we’ll host birthday parties and we set out model trains for the kids to play with,” he said. “They can bring their lunch, and a lot of people stay here all day and have fun, take a ride.”
Standing at the station, resident Jocelyn Runyon and her, daughter, Tessa, 3, agreed that the railway was a great way to spend the day.
“It’s free, it’s a great local resource for parents on a budget, that’s what drew us originally” Runyon said. “And then the people, the volunteers, are outstanding. They’re very special, and they remember your names — they send my kids birthday cards. They’re very, very special.”
She said she brings her children to the railway every Friday for repeat rides and local history.
Tessa said her favorite part is the “pumping” replica handcar inside the historical society’s reconstructed Mars Railway station on site.
“The station, of course, was built in 1897 up behind the Mars Bank,” Lang said. “We restored it, of course. Gosh, I don’t know how many pieces we cut that into. We brought it down here and restored it.”
In addition to the miniature railway and station, the site’s reconstructed railway station features the historical society’s museum and a gift shop. Model trains, replicas of Mars’ trolley line and working telegraphs pack the building.
“The railroad station is full of history, mostly railroad history but a lot of other things,” Lang said. “And then, of course, we have the 1921 caboose.”
Alongside the open caboose and the museum, the site also features an additional building full of artifacts — including a room dedicated to the borough’s one-time cinema.
And while the “birthday party” was, of course, for fun, volunteer Jessica Beasley said the society maintained its mission throughout.
“We try to educate people as much as we can when they come in,” Lang said. “A lot of this crowd are the younger kids, but these guys also work really hard to get other people here — adults here, older people here — to share the history of Mars.”
While Lang may have laid the foundation for the shortline, he said the track’s birthday celebration was Beasley’s idea.
“We just sort of noticed that it’s been 10 years and I thought, ‘Well, it’s a kids’ thing, let’s have a birthday party,’” Beasley said. “I didn’t know what to expect, but I definitely didn’t expect this big of a turnout.”
Lang agreed.
“It’s fantastic, unbelievable,” he said. “We had no idea we would get this many people; however, Jessica organizes our social media, and she’s clearly doing a good job.”
Founded in 1980, Lang said the historical society — and the shortline itself — is an effort to remind the county of the borough’s storied history.
“Mars was a really big railroad center because when the oil business was big in, let’s say, Butler County, there were warehouses and things that held all kinds of oil well supplies,” he said. “And it was hauled into here and then it was hauled all the way out to Oil City.”
At one time, the borough was home to two rail lines and a trolley service along Clay Avenue according to Lang.
“It became a pretty important stop in between Pittsburgh and Butler,” he said.
John Watson, president of the historical society, said that the shortline railway has helped attract visitors that might otherwise miss out on local history.
“Most people don’t go to museums with their kids anymore, and before we had the train we’d be lucky if we got four or five people to come down here,” he said with a laugh.
He said the addition of the shortline has helped bring the borough’s history to a new generation.
“We’re running out of parking,” he said with a laugh. “We’re trying to show off the past, but we’re making memories for the future.”
And educational or not, Lang said that was what it was all about.
“The neat thing is we just produce so many smiles,” he said. “You look at the kids’ faces, they’re having fun and it just gives you a good feeling when you see so many people smiling and laughing and having fun.”
