Creeper train gets really creepy for Halloween

Provo Canyon » On a dark and eerie October eve, with a full moon reflecting off the Provo River, Heber D. Creeper greeted wary train riders as they prepared to board weathered 1920s vintage train cars for a ride from Vivian Park to who knows where.

Creeper, played by actor Gib Berry, sported wild eyes, pointed teeth and an evil grin. A narrator of sorts, he set the scene for our hour-long Halloween-themed train ride filled with ghosts, graveyards, werewolves and frightening sounds.

The Heber Valley Railroad's Haunted Canyon is just one of many themed train rides the organization operates. Train enthusiasts can enjoy The Polar Express during the Christmas season, the Cowboy

Poetry Express in early November, a wintertime train and sleigh ride combo expedition, a Fiddlers and Fireworks event on July 24, or a Day Out with Thomas.

"For a lot of people, we are in the entertainment business," said Craig Lacey, executive director for the Heber Valley Railroad. "This is heritage tourism. We bring people to demonstrate what railroading was like 100 years ago. Sometimes, that's not enough. A train can be a great backdrop for a haunted canyon or a great stage for entertaining people like the Polar Express."

The themed trains have proven to be moneymakers for the historic railroad, which at times has faced financial problems.

Brandis Sunday of Rock Springs, Wyo., for example, made the haunted train part of a Halloween-themed trip to the Wasatch Front, which also included visiting Cornbellys Maze and Pumpkin Fest at Thanksgiving Point.

Marci Holden of Tremonton was visiting the Park City area and discovered the haunted canyon ride when searching for things to do.

Others, like Tim and Ingrid Ivins and their four-year-old daughter Hannah from Cedar Hills, live closer to Provo Canyon.

"I wanted to ride this train for three or four years and we hope she is finally

old enough," said Tim Ivins before the train began to move. "We'll see."

Though the haunted canyon isn't as intense as some spook alleys, it does have moments, especially when the lights go dark or characters played by high school drama students from Wasatch and Utah Counties begin roaming the aisles.

"I don't want to see any more of those scary guys," Hannah told her parents at one point as she clung to her father.

The railcars themselves add to the haunted feeling. One dates back to 1924 and the other two to 1930. They were built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company that operated in New Jersey and are equipped with under-carriage electric motors.

The cars have not been fully restored

and their peeling paint and old seats, augmented by fake spider webs and monsters hanging from luggage racks, add to the ambience of what is basically a haunted house on wheels.

"The cars have a life of their own, creaking and groaning, like the sounds of an old train car, with the working of springs and linkages underneath," said Lacey. "It's a lot of fun."

The original Heber railroad reached Wasatch County as a working and passenger train in September 1899 when there were no decent roads connecting Heber City and Provo. The train not only carried passengers but thousands of sheep, coal and even automobiles. It was abandoned by the Denver and Rio Grande Western in 1967 shortly after the train carried the nation's Christmas Tree.

In 1971, it became a tourist train known as the Heber Creeper. But the line began experiencing financial problems and closed in 1990. In 1992, a number of local business owners, who saw a 22 percent drop in business along Heber City's Main Street after the train shut down, petitioned the state to begin operating the train again. The non-profit, state-owned Heber Valley Railroad, helped by a $1 million grant, began operating in 1993.

"It's been an ongoing struggle," said Lacey, who has been director since 1997. "Some operations are lean and mean. We're emaciated and vicious."

But events such as Polar Express, Thomas the Tank Engine and the Haunted Canyon help bring thousands of people from all over the Intermountain area to be entertained.

Some 3,000 tickets -- about one-eighth of the total available -- have already been sold for the Polar Express, which begins its 12th season on Nov. 21. Some families or groups rent entire passenger cars. Last year, one group showed up all wearing the same kind of pajamas.

"The whole idea of gathering families, singing Christmas carols, and entertaining themselves with a car host or reader brings back what people idealized as a great family experience," said Lacey. "The little ones are convinced they have gone to the North Pole. ...With the economy receding, people are looking for experiences rather than things for the kids."

wharton@sltrib.com