It’s 2 p.m. on a lazy Saturday afternoon, and someone is about to rob the Wheatland Express.
It’s not often you see passenger trains rumbling across the prairie, and even rarer to see men ride up to them on horseback wearing bandanas, but both are about to happen on the rail line just south of Prince Albert.
“Rings on the table,” a burly outlaw says to a hesitant passenger in Car 2022.
“But this is my wedding ring,” she protests.
“That’s why I want it,” the outlaw replies.
‘Hey robbers,” yells a man behind them.
They turn, not to find a lawman with a gun, but a passenger with a camera.
“Say cheese!”
So goes another robbery on the Wheatland Express Excursion Train, a passenger train that runs the line between Wakaw and Cudworth.
On Saturday, they’re testing out an addition to their new Train Robbery Excursion: outlaws on horseback. Instead of being confined to the train, organizers are trying to find a way to incorporate one of the old west’s most common sights.
“Most train heists in other places do have terrain where they can have horses ride up to the train and the bad guys will jump off,” Wheatland reservation specialist Haley Beswick says. “We don’t have that much access for that, so we decided to just bring out horses and do a stop on our way back from Cudworth and then we’ll have a bad guy jump up on the train.”
Wheatland ran the Train Robbery Excursion this past summer. Beswick said it was an overwhelming success, and that inspired them to add more features and bring it back in 2025.
The Saturday, Sept. 28 ride was the final Train Robbery of the summer. It acted as a test run to see how adding a new dimension would work.
“It was a last-minute decision,” Beswick says.
Fortunately, the men robbing the Wheatland train are more Robin Hood than Jesse James. Passengers can “donate” their money during the heist, with the funds going towards a new charity every year (this year it’s the Saskatchewan City Hospital Foundation).
And the woman with the wedding ring? She’s an actor, like the robbers. They all come from the Buttered Ghost Theatre Group, and Beswick said they do a great job adding to the experience.
“We told them what our vision was, because we really wanted to attract a lot of customers and we’d heard about their company,” Beswick explained. “They’ve been on board with us for a few years now and we have not regretted using them. They’re phenomenal. They work with us well, and we do get great feedback from our passengers also.”
Saturday’s test run is just one of several changes coming to the Wheatland Express. This fall, they hope to finish construction of a new indoor station in Wakaw. The building will provide improved accessibility for passengers with wheelchairs, while also housing an interpretive museum.
Beswick said they’re still doing some research, but hope to have the building up and running by next summer.
Ideally, she’s hoping the new developments will get Saskatchewan residents off the couch and out of the house.
“We really want for the public to really recognize that in Saskatchewan, we do have this type of excursion where we have our professional actors, where we take people on featured tours,” she says. “It’s just to get people out and enjoy more of summer in Saskatchewan.”
For more information about the Wheatland Excursion Train, visit wheatlandexpresstrain.ca.
