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The Cannonball - 1890s steam engine
locomotive that serviced the small towns of Pixley, Crabwell Corners
and Hooterville on the rural situation comedy PETTICOAT
JUNCTION/CBS/1963-70 and GREEN ACRES/CBS/1965-71.
Opening Theme Song
Come ride the little train
That is rolling down the tracks
To the junction. (Petticoat Junction)
Forget about your cares,
It is time to relax
At the junction. (Petticoat Junction)
Lotsa curves, you bet.
Even more when you get
To the junction, (Petticoat Junction)
There's a little hotel
Called the Shady Rest
At the junction. (Petticoat Junction)
It is run by Kate,
Come and be her guest
At the junction. (Petticoat Junction)
And that's Uncle Joe,
He's a movin' kind of slow
At the junction (Petticoat Junction)
(Lyrics by Paul Henning and Curt Massey)
The Cannonball was owned by the C. F. &W. Railroad Company. Its
Vice-President, Homer Bedloe (Charles Lane) wanted to put the train
out of business and thus fire the life-long conductor, Floyd Smoot (Rufe
Davis) and engineer, Charley Pratt (Smiley Burnett). Later in the
series, Wendell Gibbs (Byron Foulger) became the engineer.
The train consisted of the Cannonball (Engine No.8), a coal car and
a combination mail/baggage/passenger car. When children in the
valley area heard three toots of the train's whistle they knew their
ride to school was on its way.
Betty Jo Bradley (Linda Kaye Henning), a young woman from the nearby
Shady Rest Hotel got her jollies occasionally driving the
Cannonball. On hot days Betty Jo and her sisters swam in the
railroad water tower.
Engineers Charley and Floyd
The stationary prop train used for the series was actually a large
plastic shell first used for the movie Ticket to Tomahawk (1950)
starring Marilyn Monroe. A real train located in Sonora, California,
(Provided courtesy of the Barbary Coast Hoyt Hotel) was used for the
live footage and traveling shots.
The Cannonball (built in 1891) is now the No. 3 train at Railtown, a
twenty-six acre state historic park located at 5th avenue at
Reservoir Road in Jamestown, California that displays steam and
diesel trains (used for location shooting for TV series & movies).
The Cannonball, like many of the trains at Railtown, were once the
property of the Sierra Railway.
TRIVIA NOTE:
In addition to its tenure as the Cannonball, the same train was used
as the rolling headquarters and home of frontier government spy
James T. West (Robert Conrad) in the hit western series THE WILD
WILD WEST/CBS/1965-70.
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