MONTANA'S MINIATURE 'CANNON BALL'

(Page 2 of 2)

November/December 1968
Bob Olson 
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The good weather weeks of nearly 20 years have found the Mabary 'railroad' plying its route of happiness for children. Teachers bring small boys and girls for the treat and recently the 'Head Start' classes of both Hamilton and Corvallis had their chances at holidays on the railroad.

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Mabary says he has enough materials collected to build another train. 'I'll be working on it until I'm 100,' he chuckles and Mrs. Mabary laughs with him.

'Old 2223', Mabary's pattern engine, has a history of exceptional service. The old engine pulled trains for years between Missoula and Butte and then it was transferred to St. Paul. In its Montana assignments one stood out as most memorable. Mabary said the engine stood 'fired and ready' with wrecker and supply cars in 1918 in case anything happened to a special train in which President Woodrow Wilson was touring the Western states.

Mabary's miniature engine can get up a steam pressure of 110 pounds per square inch. It's a Q-4 just like the old 2223. The big engine was built by the Schenectady plant of the American Locomotive Works in New York in 1910.

None of the children who ride the little Mabary train love it more than Roy and Beryl's own grandchildren, Carol, Connie and Cathie who come from Littleton. Colo, each summer for a visit. Their father, George LeRoy Mabary, is an engineer at a missile site near Littleton.

Roy Mabary was born in Helena and all his years have been spent in Montana. His wife, whom he met as Beryl Freeze in 1918 and married the following year, was born in Iowa but has been a Montanan since she was two years old.

Their little farm, with its apple trees and colorful fields, is a happy place. They are still not retired people, they tell you, even at ages 65 and 71. Roy is operator of the one theater in Hamilton, and Beryl takes care of the ticket office. 'I'm still a machinist,' Mabary claims.

The Spokesman-Revies Sunday Magazine, July 23, 1967.

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