The Busy World of Richard Scarry Wiki
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"The Train Trip" is a story from Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day.

Plot[]

A pig family is visiting cousins of the piglets (it is never known on which parent's side of the family they're the cousins). While on the train, while crossing a road, a pig crossing guard lowers a railroad-crossing gate to keep cars from bumping into the train, but Wild Bill Hiccup just "has to bump into something." Meanwhile, as the Pig family awaits dinner, the pig cook, aptly named "Cookie," tries and fails to flip pancakes from the cooked side to the raw one, as they fly out of the dining car. At one point, the train swerves, and a waiter spills a big bowl of soup. As the family is eating in that same car, something is being done in the sleeping car: a porter changes those seats into beds. Then everyone gets ready for bed (with two piglet children on the upper-most bunk, and a mouse on one below it), and the mother pig lowers the shade. But only the passengers fall asleep, but the crew will sleep when the trip is over. Still, with encouragement from the writer to "keep trying," Cookie is still trying to learn how to flip pancakes.

At the end, the train arrives at a station where the cousins are on a toy ice cream train of their own.

Note[]

During the bedtime scene, two of the piglets sleep on opposite ends of the same top bunk. In real life, it is not safe for more than one person to sleep on any top bunk because of potential entrapment. Also, there are no guardrails on any of the sides of the bunk, nor is there a ladder. Guardrails on both sides (even if one of them is against a wall) would keep anyone sleeping on the top bunk from falling off the bed (or, in the case of the side against the wall, getting trapped), and a ladder is the only safe way to get on or off any bunk higher than the bottom.

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