BOONE, Iowa — This weekend there were many visitors for the annual Pufferbilly Days, a celebration of the town’s rail heritage.

There is, of course, a parade and model railroad show. However, there are always train rides at the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad. The town also has some friendly competition pounding rail spikes, and racing rail handcars.

The handcars are driven by four people pumping the wheels to make the rail. The race was about a quarter of a mile on a rail line owned by the Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad. The tracks are for the electric trolley Car 50.

Five teams entered the competition at Pufferbilly days.

“I thought it was great. It was a lot of fun,” said Janet Schultz, a retired Union Pacific railroad engineer. “We did one (practice) run so yeah just once for about 10 minutes is like, it’s not bad. The first, the worst part is getting started.”

“Oh, it was amazing. I had an absolute fun time. It was really hard to push,” said Chandler Cavanaugh of Boone. Cavanaugh was part of a team of co-workers from APC in Boone.

“It was a lot harder than I thought,” said Kaitlyn Sims also on the APC team from Boone. “My arms are tired right now so I mean it was a workout.”