8-31-2022 11:02am

A Dream Come True in Diane Bakos’ Children’s Book Nathaniel’s Trains

When children have a dream, if they’re lucky, they will have parents who encourage and support them to follow their dream.

And when children have a dream, if they’re lucky, they will meet real-life adults who followed theirs and worked to make their own dream-come-true.

Diane Bakos, television anchor, talk-show host, and producer, is one of those parents whose recently-released children’s book Nathaniel’s Trains, illustrated by Matt Szychowski, recounts the story of real-life Nathaniel Guest, founder and executive director of the Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust at Colebrookdale Railroad, also known as the Secret Valley Line, who has made his own childhood dream a reality.

Nathaniel’s Trains tells the story of Guest, who, as a young boy, loved trains and especially the toy one that his grandfather gave him; and, on a visit with his father to the retired Colebrookdale Railroad engine—rusted and in ruin—Guest was inspired to sell his toy trains and use the money to help renovate the engine to its former glory.

Bakos’ son Will is also a train fanatic and had scheduled a number of local trips, including one on the ColebrookdaleRailroad. She offers, “My son has a gigantic layout, and I know the time and love that goes into creating something like that. To let it go as Nathaniel did—even though he was an adult--may not seem like much to some, but it sure hit home with me.”

After meeting Guest, Will volunteered to help in the renovations. Too young to drive to Boyertown himself, Bakos drove him; and, when she saw the ticket booth, the loading platform, the cars with their stained glass...and after stepping into that first car, she became a volunteer—and a fan, too.

The Colebrookdale Station features bricks, gas lamps, and metal gates collected from towns in Pennsylvania. The Colebrookdale Preservation Trust, which operates the railroad, has collected and restored Pullman cars and steam engines that have been intricately reworked with Tiffany-style lights, gold-leaf decorations and leather seating. “Our cars show what a luxurious experience travel was in a different time,” says Guest. “It was a much finer way to travel.”

Dating back to the Civil War era, the Colebrookdale Railroad has been running passenger trains for almost 10 years on an 8-mile run from Boyertown to Pottstown through wooded areas and along rock formations that were blasted away to provide passage. Freight cars that haul stone and agricultural products help to cover costs to renovate and run the line.

“Getting this far hasn’t been easy,” admits Guest. “You have to be a child at heart to do something like this. You have to be an idealist. I guess I don’t feel any different than when I was a little boy and dreamed about it.”

News stories about Guest have inspired others to volunteer to help him. And in a happy—and also true—story, the Colebrookdale Railroad, Boyertown, Berks County, won second place in the 2020 USA Today Readers’ Choice Award for the best scenic train ride --no small accomplishment.

Bakos has created informational videos about Colebrookdale Railroad that can be seen on its YouTube page. She also helped with service, hosting VIPs, writing news releases, even escorting both Santa and the Easter Bunny. But writing the story from a through a child’s eyes in Nathaniel’s Trains allowed her to reach other children who have a passion and to inspire them to hope and “dream big” to make a difference.

She shares, “Nathaniel was an adult when he sold his layout and started the Colebrookdale Railroad; but having had a child who was just as obsessed with everything ‘rail,’ I wanted to put a book out there that would appeal directly to those little ones who also thrill at these giant machines. I wanted them to know that their dreams could come true, that there are people out there who are willing to help, to stand by you. The Universe falls into place when you call upon it, you know? The little boy in the book received his own layout back at the end, while the real Nathaniel did not. I think I wrote it that way because I wish someone would have done that for him,” she continues.

“We so often feel we're alone in whatever we're going through. And we feel that, if everything doesn't go just as we planned, we've somehow failed. I've learned that people can surprise you. Sometimes, all we need to do is open up...ask...and they'll be right there. And some of the things in my own life that I thought at the time were just terrible have turned out to be blessings I never would have even thought to ask for. There was something I once saw written that has again and again given me support: God has three answers to prayers: ‘Maybe, Not yet, I have something better in mind.’

“Whatever power you believe in, the attitude behind this, and the acceptance of ‘what is,’ can carry you through so much. Life doesn't have to go just as you think it should, and that can be a very good thing,” she concludes.

About the Colebrookdale Railroad:
https://www.colebrookdalerailroad.com/

About Diane Bakos:

“I've loved writing forever, and I believe that grew from a great love of reading. From the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mysteries, through Mark Twain (one of my all-time favorites), Jack London (dog and horse stories, yes!), David Baldacci, to Elie Wiesel, and Eckhart Tolle, and Daniel Quinn, and so many, many others. I did well in my English classes - thank you to you and all the other caring teachers out there! - and I occasionally submitted and even published a few things. I was an exchange student in Turkey after high school, and my local newspaper printed a series of letters I wrote to my community at home, letters full of the exciting new life I was experiencing. Being published like that was a thrill.

“I've always felt this bent of mine was inherited from my grandfather, who was outrageously creative and funny. We'd exchange letters, each trying to prove wittier than the other. He also wrote for Stars and Stripes. When he died, other family members simply threw away his wonderful stories, something I've always found a bit painful.

“WHACK'd was my first self-published book, and I went against all of today's "rules" for writing. It wasn't written "to market," it wasn't written for any specific age group, I didn't restrict the vocabulary. I just wanted to write what I wanted to write, so I did. I'd gotten the idea for the story while sitting in Camelback Ski Resort's lodge one winter, and played with the idea on and off for years. I finally finished the book when a dear friend, who also had a book idea, suggested we meet weekly at our local Barnes & Noble and just write. If not for her, I might never have completed it.

“Our family was booked to ride The Orient Express in October of 2020. COVID hit, the trip was canceled, and my son - a MAJOR train aficionado, presented me with a chart he'd drawn up, listing area railroads, when we should ride them, and what they would cost. Will was 16 years-old at the time. I thought we'd ridden pretty much all of them already, many several times over. But in October, we pulled up to the railyard of the Colebrookdale Railroad, and we could see at an instant that this train was different - very different.