810-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 1,1989
BY LOU ANN GOOD
MARTINDALE (Lancaster
Co.) In a meadow near Martin
dale, a (rain chugs around a track.
Blackie, the dog, lounges in one of
the cars.
Noah Zimmerman, owner of the
train, watches as Blackie stretches
out in the lounge car. Zimmerman
said, “Blackie likes Hding the train
as much as I do.”
He adds, “People say, I just got
this train to get my name in the
paper. They think I just like to
play.”
He shakes his head and sadly
adds, “But it’s really a dream that I
always had. It brings back child
hood memories.”
When Zimmerman was a pre
schooler, his dad had a steam
engine and tender. “Sometimes I
got to ride on it when we went to
get water or coal, but I was never
allowed to drive it because I was
too little.”
His dad sold the engine when
Zimmerman was six years old.
After that, Zimmerman said, “It
was always sticking in me to get
one like it.”
Three years ago, Zimmerman
found a train in Shippensburg. It
had been made for an amusement
park by Crown Metals near Pitts
burg. Zimmerman bought it; took
it apart piece by piece, sanded and
painted it He repaired the parts to
get it in good running condition.
“It took me a whole year to get it
in A-l shape,” Zimmerman
remarked. It required two months
to set up the tract that circles about
one-fourth of a mile.
It also took a lot of money.
“People look at this and think it’s
only a toy, but they don’t realize
how much it took to get it fixed up.
Just to shine the chrome cost me
$300.”
The engine, tender, three cars
and a caboose hauls about 10 peo
ple on each ride. Zimmerman
believes it would be belter if his
land was more flat, but he said,
“The train got a lot of power.”
People of all ages enjoy riding
on the train. Zimmerman doesn’t
charge, but he appreciates a dona
tion of approximately 75 cents for
children and one dollar for adults.
Although he enjoys giving visi
tors rides, Zimmerman said that
his farm is not near enough to a
large highway to make it a profit
able venture. “It takes me one and a
half hours to fire up the engine. I
should have at least 25 people at a
time to make it worth the time it
takes,” he said.
Zimmerman runs it on Saturday
afternoons and by appointment for
groups. From Route 322 in Hinkle
town, turn on Lancaster Avenue.
About one and a half miles, his
farm, Conestoga Valley Dairy, sets
on the right before the Martindalc
square. For more information call
(717) 445-6061.
Zimmerman said, “I did what I
wanted to do. I fixed it up, played
with it and put it in shape. I didn’t
want to see it disintegrate.”
Now that Zimmerman did what
he wanted to do, he’d like to sell it
to someone who could run it rppre
often than he can.
He said, “I got work to do
All Aboard For A Summertime Choo Choo
A pedal train with 90 feet of track is available from Noan
Zimmerman who likes to do woodworking on the side.
around here...there’s always some
thing to do.”
He takes care of the dairy store
at the farm where he lived since
1943. Ten years ago his son-in
law, David Homing, took over the
Videotapes Teach Fear
By Joy Aschenbach
National Geographic
News Service
WASHINGTON Monkey
see, monkey do?
Put a caged monkey in front of
a video monitor, play a tape of
another monkey behaving fearful
ly at the sight of a toy snake of
alligator, and eventually the
video-watching monkey is likely
to pick up the same fears.
In a series of experiments, more
than half of the laboratory-reared
rhesus monkeys, with no innate
fear of real or toy snakes or alliga
tors, became afraid of the reptiles
after watching the tapes, says psy
chologist Susan Mineka of North
western University. The acquired
fear was retained for at least a
three-month follow-up study
period.
These results.. Dr. Mineka says,
“demonstrate that strong emotion
al learning can indeed occur simp
ly through watching videotapes.”
In contrast, when the original
videotape was edited to show the
monkey on the screen displaying
the same fear toward images of
brightly colored flowers, she says
virtually none of the observing
monkeys acquired a fear of flow
ers. Similarly, when images of a
toy rabbit were substituted for a
toy alligator, the video-viewing
monkeys did not become afraid of
rabbits.
“Although the monkeys had no
innate fear of snakes or alligators,
there appears to be some predis
position in the evolution of monk
eys to acquire such fears,” she
tells National Geographic News
Service. “Fear of even iffy snakes
is easily acquired, but a fear of
flowers is not.”
Psycholo'gist Charles T. Snow
don of the University of Wiscon
sin says videotapes potentially can
be used to teach endangered pri
mate species that are to be reintro
dairy fanning. In addition to sell
ing milk and ice cream, Zimmer
man has a woodworking shop
where he makes stools, lawn furni
ture and storage bams. He even
duced into the wild to avoid their
natural predators and to forage for
food.
There may be a lesson here for
people too. “It is quite likely that
children could pick up fears from
watching someone on videotape
exhibiting fear of certain objects
or situations,” says Dr. Mineka.
“The effects on children of watch
ing aggression and violence on
TV increasing their tendency
toward aggressive behavior are
already well known. Our findings
show that fear can also be
acquired by observational
learning.”
In the largest experiment, 26
monkeys watched videotapes.
Half viewed tapes of a monkey
behaving fearfully at the sight of a
toy snake and calmly at the sight
This train chugs around the field of Noah Zimmerman,
Martindale. He offers rides to visitors on Saturday after
noon and by appointment.
carries bis love for trains over into
his woodworking. He made a ped
al train with three cars and 190 feet
of tract. “Children from four to 12
can pedal it,” Zimmerman said.
The track is made of 9-inch gauge
To Laboratory Monkeys
of flowers; the other half saw fear
toward flowers, but calm behavior
toward snakes, says psychologist
Michael Cook, who conducted the
experiments at the Wisconsin
Regional Primate Research
Center.
During 12-minute conditioning
sessions on 12 different days.
Cook says vidwlng monkeys
witnessed expressions of fear on
the screen that included agitated
behavior, grimaces, lip-smacking,
and retreating to the back of a
cage.
Among the 13 that watched the '
monkey behaving “calmly and
nonchalantly in the presence of a
snake, none acquired a fear of
snakes,” he says.
The observing monkeys were
subjected to two types of follow-
steel and the train from 13-inch
gauge steel.
Whether it’s the steam engine or
the pedal train, Zimmerman enjoys
seeing others derive pleasure from
his workmanship.
up tests to determide if they had
picked up any fears. Cook says the
monkeys interacted with the vid
eotapes “in socially appropriate
ways. They reacted to the taped
image of the monkey in either an
aggressive or submissive posture
as if it were real. They tried to
reach for food treats on the screen
as if they were real.”
Using videotapes saves scien
tists from having to stage elabo
rate setups with live models, but
Dr. Mineka says that monkeys
sometimes do not pay as much
attention to a video monitor as
they would to a fellow live monk
ey in the same room.
A taped monkey, she says, is
not quite as an effective model as
a live one.