One of the common entertainment's among the boys and some adults was watching the train come in every night. The Montgomery depot was on the dead end of a little spur track off of the main railroad line and the train would pull in forward to the station every morning on it's east bound trip, then it would back out to the main line and continue it's run eastward. About 8 PM that evening, the train would return and back up to the depot from the main line. After doing it's business it would pull out forward back to the main line. So if you had business in Conroe for instance and didn't have a car, you rode the train over to Conroe in the morning, spent the day, then rode the train back to Montgomery at night.

Some of the boys created a "game" that occasionally increased the fun of train watching. When the train backed in at night, the engineer didn't turn the locomotive's headlight on until he started to pull out from the depot and the tracks ahead were dark. Once in a while, one or two of the more adventurous boys would slip out onto the dark tracks in front of the engine as soon as the train backed in and rub the rails real good with bar soap for about 50 feet or so.

When the train started to pull out of the station, it would only move a few feet before it hit the soaped area. The train would come to a complete stop on the soaped area, but the drive wheels on the engine would still be spinning at about 50 miles an hour. Of course the friction from the spinning wheels would quickly burn the soap off and the train would inch along with it's wheels spinning at about 50 miles an hour for the next 50 feet or so. The kids and probably some of the adults thought it was hilarious, but the engineer never laughed, at least where we could see him.