Trouble on the Tracks

Guest Post by Campfire Musings

A Kansas Prank That Lit Up the Night

Summer 1969 in our small Kansas town felt like a dare waiting to happen, with railroad tracks slicing southeast to northwest and grain silos watching over us like silent giants. At 15, I was itching for adventure, and my buddy Chris was the perfect partner in crime. One July evening, as dusk turned the sky to fire, we stirred up trouble by those tracks that still makes me grin—and cringe.

We’d spend hours by the rails, laying pennies on the tracks to let the freight trains squash them into shiny, stretched discs—our version of treasure. That night, we wanted more. Chris, with his knack for trouble, spotted a railroad track inspection vehicle parked near an elevated concrete landing.

We jimmied it open, pulses racing, and found these large orange thingamabobs, they looked like large caps. They were explosive signal flares. They had large lead straps attached to them that you bent over the tracks. These were used to signal trains. To us, they were a challenge we couldn’t resist.

We attached one of these ‘thingamabobs’ on the tracks, just above the landing, its orange shell glinting in the fading light. Nearby, we found a heavy square of wood—some old wooden rigging—and took turns hurling it at the cap. The air was thick with creosote and summer heat, our laughs edged with nerves. My throw was off, Chris’s barely hit, but then—bam. BOOM! The cap went off, a crack like a shotgun blasting through the quiet, echoing off the silos. We froze, eyes wide, then sprinted, sneakers pounding gravel, diving into the weeds as laughter and panic mixed. Someone in town surely heard it, but we were ghosts, gone before trouble caught up.

That prank was pure 15-year-old folly, but it showed me how a thrill can burn a moment into you. To my grandkids: chase the rush, but know when to bolt—some stories are worth the scare.

What’s a time you pulled off a prank and barely escaped?