NORTH PLATTE. Neb. (WOWT) — The Make-A-Wish foundation does some incredible work, and sometimes the wishes they are asked to grant can be surprising.
One Wisconsin boy made a wish to visit Nebraska to see trains in action in North Platte.
“We really don’t know why he loves trains, but it started pretty young. From one-and-a-half to two years old. He just absolutely loves them,” said Ryan Dodge, Bentley’s father.
It wasn’t hard to come up with a plan when 5-year-old Bentley made his wish.
“They have loud horns and they’re pretty much cool,” said Bentley.
He got a V.I.P. tour of Bailey Yard in North Platte.
“He’s a really smart 5-year-old. So, he was really taking stuff in today. And, there’s a lot of things that, just because we know him, when we play trains in the future, he’s going to regurgitate a lot of the information he got today,” Dodge said.
The family has tracks running near their Wisconsin home.
“We’ll sit out there for hours and look at trains because he just loves them,” Dodge said.
Whenever they’re not watching real trains, they’re playing with toy trains.
“They’re wooden and they’re small and the tracks are smaller,” explained Bentley.
His toys are just a little different then the trains in the yard.
“They’re on tracks and they haul a lot and it’s cool,” Bentley said.
Seeing one of the trains up close wasn’t what impressed him the most.
“Where they fix the trains was pretty cool. he was on the platform and got to look over all of the trains, so, that was really fun to see. He was really digging that,” Dodge said.
The best news of all is that things are looking good for Bentley.
He was diagnosed with retinoblastoma last year after his family noticed he had some problems with his eye.
“Even though he’s gone through a lot, he’s a really strong little 5-year-old. Even when he was going through the chemo, he was super happy,” Dodge said.
That joy showed as he watched the trains.
“I was thinking, “Woah, these are the kinds of trains I like,'” Bentley said.
The memories made will last him a lifetime.
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