camracrazy said:
Here is the website for the Soo Line Historical and Technical Society:
http://www.sooline.org/home.html
If you click on "Contacts" it tells you how to place an ad in the Soo quarterly magazine. It could be that someone reading the magazine could have an old train schedule. Or, you could join the mailing list at:
SooLineHistory-subscribe@egroups.com
Maybe someone on that list could help.
I think that these links might prove useful in this very old and intriguing case. Of course, there are many possibilities and theories concerning what happened to Jackie on 5 September 1944, but when all things are considered, it is a very likely possibility that he was abducted.
A very thorough search was made for Jackie, and 61 years have now passed, during which Jackie's body could have been found, if he had died in Paynesville. That Jackie, a boy of five years old, might have had run away, kept his own name, joined the Navy, and lived to an old age, although an interesting theory, is probably not too likely.
Two more likely scenarios would be that Jackie was either abducted by someone driving by/through Paynesville in a vehicle, or that he walked to the train station and was abducted by person or persons riding the rails.
Gasoline, oil, and tires were under strict rationing in 1944, and driving of motor vehicles was at a minimum. IF a person or family owned a car in 1944, it was probably only one, unlike today, where a family owns an average of three or four vehicles. This should be considered when trying to envision a possible auto abduction theory.
Rail travel, especially by hobos and migrants, was a normal reality in Minnesota in 1944. September is the start of the harvest season, and many farmers' sons were serving in the armed forces. Migrant workers were in abundance, looking for farm work. Many of the small towns in Minnesota were "Railroad towns" which sprung up along the train lines, and every town had a place where these migrants congregated, camped, and sought work.
I feel that, although Jackie had walked away from school in the wrong direction, he soon realized his error when he came to the big highway. At that point, he could have walked back to school, or seeing where he was, walked in the direction of the railroad, which ran right by his home. Dogs later did pick up his scent near the Creamery (near the train station) and tracked him West, along the railroad tracks where they lost his scent.