Haunted train to be open only Friday

While haunted houses might be some of the attractions students encounter on Halloween, the Bakers Junction Haunted Train could provide a different type of fright.
Located in Smithville, Ind., Bakers Junction is a railroad museum that houses a haunted train. There’s also a haunted house and a kiddie haunted house at the train station.

“Anybody that’s brave enough can go out to the big haunted house,” said John Baker, owner of Bakers Junction. “We have a real skeleton and real gravestones.”

Baker started the Junction in 1977. He said he lived in Smithville his entire life except when he was in the Navy.

Upon his return from the Navy, Baker battled cancer.

“After I got out of the Navy, I found out I had bone cancer,” he said. “I was only given a 10 percent chance of living.”

Luckily for Baker, he was able to beat cancer and was inspired to start the railroad museum shortly afterward.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do,” he said. “The train station was going to be torn down. I wanted to save it, and no one wanted to.”

Baker decided to take matters into his own hands and start the railroad museum.
“One day, we were just talking about it and decided it was a good idea,” Baker’s wife, Cheryl, said. “John just had an idea and we just rolled with it.”

In 1992, Baker decided to add a haunted house to the station.

“It seemed like a good way to get people in here,” he said. “We only got a few people into the train station. It’s a good way to get people in here once a year.”

Cheryl Baker said she enjoys the terror the haunted station provides every October.
“I like everything about it,” she said. “I like the people coming out of the train scared witless.”

John Baker said, above all, he likes to see people have a good time.

“I just like to see people have fun,” he said. “We keep it down to $5 a person because everything is just so much these days. Even though we need the money, I’m not going to raise the prices. I want people to be able to afford to come.”

Part of the reason the Bakers need money is because of the legal struggles they have dealt with through owning the station. In 1995, a neighbor’s complaint led to a courtroom battle between John Baker and city planning and zoning. He had to file for bankruptcy and put two mortgages on his house. In the end, he won the battle in court.

“We won, if you call losing everything winning,” he said.

But the battle is still ongoing – years later – outside the courtroom.

“They’ve taken down several of our signs,” John Baker said. “They don’t want this place here. They told us one way or another we were going to close this place, and I told them, ‘over my dead body.’”

He said they usually make about $5,000 a year. Because many of their signs were taken down, they will likely only bring in about $2,000. That’s not much considering they spent more than $5,000 preparing the site one year.

Despite the struggles, the Bakers plan to continue operation no matter what happens.

“It doesn’t matter if we make any money or not,” John Baker said. “This is where we live and this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be here till I die.”

Cheryl Baker shares the same enthusiasm and said she has enjoyed seeing the junction grow throughout the years.

“Every year gets better and better,” she said. “We start getting excited in mid-summer. The closer it comes to October, the more excited we get.”

This Halloween, the train will operate from 7 to 10 p.m.

The haunted house only operates during Halloween, but Baker said people can see the railroad museum any time of the year.