Boy With Cancer Gets Wish to Ride a Train

Submitted by the Grafton and Upton Railroad

Brady Smith, of Webster, loves trains: freight trains in particular. The 4-year-old (his birthday was Monday, May 20) saw a YouTube video of a locomotive rumbling down the tracks one day and was fascinated, according to his father, Tim Smith.

Smith said he and his wife, Brady’s mom, April Smith, often take Brady to the CSX Transportation yard in Worcester to watch the freight trains roll in, out and around the yard. Brady, who is fighting a battle with a virulent form of cancer called neuroblastoma, couldn’t be happier during those times.

April Smith was talking to a friend one day when the subject Brady’s love of trains came up. It just so happened that the friend knew Kevin Gallagher, an engineer with the Grafton and Upton Railroad. That led to today’s opportunity for Brady to take a short ride in one of the G and U’s locomotives from North Grafton to Grafton Center and back.

“We are thankful that this will give Brady an opportunity to do something he absolutely loves,” said Tim Smith.  “I don’t really know where this (love of trains) came from.  My father and grandfather worked on railroads for a time, but he doesn’t really know about all of that.”

The G and U, as it’s commonly called, is a short line freight carrier that serves customers whose bulk goods come in by way of the CSX freight trains Brady loves. CSX drops off the cars for the G and U’s customers at the Westboro Road yard in North Grafton. From there, the G and U takes the cars to one of its two transloading yards in West Upton and Hopedale.

G and U owner Jon Delli Priscoli said when he heard about Brady’s love of freight trains, he knew it was the right thing to do.

“As a railroad owner, and more importantly as a father myself, I thought this would be a great thing to do for Brady and his family,” Delli Priscoli said. “I hope in some small way this makes Brady happy because that’s what this is all about.”