The Time I Went to the Train Station Before it was Open

Okay, I gotta share the craziest thing that happened to me in Bearville. I have no way to prove this happened, so screenshots or anything, but I swear it happened. I somehow managed to get access to the train station to the North Pole before it was officially open online, and by extension I could have been one of the first people to see the North Pole before it was even open (I didn't though, more in that below).

If I remember right, the North Pole and train stations were added in November 2008 (maybe 2009?) around American Thanksgiving. It was announced to be a thing that was going to happen, and I think by that time there were already some small screenshots of them in the Bearville Times and stuff. I knew I was playing really late one night(secretly, way past my bedtime), probably 1 am Eastern time. I usually played on the empty servers to avoid load screens, and when I logged on, I think it said I was spawned at the University. In actuality though, it was the North Pole train station! I remember being super confused because I didn't realize that this was the North Pole at first, and was afraid I was going to get banned for accessing someplace I obviously wasn't supposed to be in.
In my infinite wisdom though, I ended up not going from the North Pole train station to the North Pole area. Since all we knew about at that time was that there was going to be a train station to the North Pole, I assumed the station I was at was the one in Bearville, not the other way around. So I ended up riding the train from the North Pole, got to experience the animation of sitting on the train car, and went back to the train station in Bearville, which I assumed was actually the North Pole station for some reason. I then walked from the station to what I thought was the North Pole, but it actually just put me at the University! I was so confused, and there was no paw print on the ground to let me go back to the station.

The two main things of note I remember after that was 1) I saw what I think was one of the site mods at the University (they wore the Bearville Guide hats but they were white, not blue), which was cool because I don't think I had ever seen one before that. I can't remember for sure though, it may have been another regular user who had the blue guide hat, but I can't remember if the guides were even a thing at that point. Plus they were the only other person I saw on the server, and it was super late, so it would make sense that there was a mod there testing the servers and potentially testing the North Pole and train station on a seemingly empty server. I was really afraid they would find out I accidentally got to the North Pole and ban me for hacking, but it didn't happen.

2) I noticed that the train station in Bearville, which again I thought was actually the North Pole station, had the autumn theming. That seemed weird because I assumed that it being the "North Pole" it would have snow a stuff, and only later when I realized that wasn't the North Pole did it click. What was really weird when I think back, was that the day the train station and North Pole opened, that was when Bearville got it's snowy winter look. So when the station officially opened, it had it's winter theming, not the autumn theming I saw before. That means that probably had the art and textures already programmed for the other seasons long before they would be seen in game, since the autumn theming wouldn't be seen until nearly a year later. Kinda cool to realize how far they planned that stuff ahead looking back.

Anyways that's my story. I wished I had taken screenshots at the time, I think I was just so amazed and wanted to explore before I could even get the chance to take pictures. Someone at the Bearville tech support probably would've gotten in some trouble if I leaked those, haha.

That is so neat! What a nice memory. I'm glad they didn't ban you, I would have been terrrrrrrified hahaha. I didn't realized they planned so far ahead though. That's really interesting.

sounds great.