Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania

My boys love trains, especially my 14-year old, so it was an easy choice for us to check out the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Since we have a large family, it was the same price for us to become a member as to buy tickets for the whole family for the day ($40). With the membership, you get free admission to the museum for the year. I am suspecting that we will be back again!

As well as the hundreds of locomotives on display, some of which you can go inside, there are lots of hands-on activities for kids to do. There is a simulator in which you can pretend to actually drive a train. The screen responds to your motions, and shows what you would see.

There is an area in which kids can pretend to shovel coal (black foam shaped like coal) into the firebox.

A display of the system used to sort mail on the train allows kids to sort plastic cards into the slots just like they did on real trains.

And they have a huge area that has all kinds of models and hands-on activities. Even my 16-year old daughter had fun there, directing the romote trains that were on a shelf around the top of the whole room.

Golden Spike National Historic Site, UT

This was a place I had always wanted to go and see, most especially with the SERIOUS railway enthusiast that is my first-born. He thought this was the coolest, and is already talking about going back with Dad.

We went on a Friday. I had tried to find as much information as I could on their web site, which was pretty informative. However, they gave no specific information about the engine demonstrations, because they can change without notice, so I was pretty clueless going out there. I did learn that one of their annual events, the Railroaders Festival happens every year on the second Saturday in August -- the day after our visit. But we had a birthday party to attend, so I didn't change our plans. And while we were there, I didn't ask about the festival because I didn't want to know (or have anyone hear...) what we were missing out on. :o)

The drive is every bit of 30 miles west of Brigham City. We are talking in the middle of nowhere, people. It's good that I enjoy road trips; it was kinda fun to watch the landscape unfold, looking for any sort of a facility in site. I had to laugh when we finally saw the engines from a distance and Zach in his giddy voice was saying, "I'm going to stop feeling so excited!!" This is the view he was talking about:



We arrived at 11:30 and I had packed picnic lunch so we went in to look at the offerings. I paid my seven dollars and glanced at the schedule they had written in chalk behind the counter. One of the trains arrives (from where, I have no idea!) at 10:00, the other at 10:30, so my heart sank thinking we had missed that and wouldn't be able to see them move at all. At 12:00 they had a "steam demonstration" so we hurried and watched the 20 minute video, then got our lunches to sit out at the benches where the locomotives were. Um, zero shade. But thankfully a comfortable amount of wind so the sun didn't feel too hot. They had picnic tables in other spots and there may have been some trees there.



The replicas they have made really are impressive. You can get up close to them but no touchy. First they demonstrated the 119. Zach was sitting next to me and Ben was standing in front of us when they blew the whistle before it started moving. I myself probably jumped a couple of inches, it will be funny to watch the video I was trying to make. Poor Ben about fell over. After that, Zach was nervously playing with my hair and covering his ears for much of the time. They also demonstrated the Jupiter by backing it up a couple hundred yards and then bringing it back. Nothing fancy, but it was fun to sit and enjoy our lunch while we watched. When the engines are parked, they have stairs and a platform on one side of them so you can get a good look into the cabs. The engineers are there to answer questions and we learned some new things. The 119's sandbox has a picture of Johnny Appleseed painted on one side and Daniel Boone on the other. I also didn't know that one of the trains used coal and the other wood for fuel, because of what was most available from their respective side of the country.



Oh yes, we also got to ride on this speeder. I thought it was such a treat, and it made the coolest old-fashioned putting sound. The driver told me that it is run with an engine that actually has to be turned off, and then restarted to turn the other way to return us. (No reverse gear) I'm sure that, had Peter been there, he would have caught the term for such an engine!

The remainder of our time was spent in the gift shop, where Zach decided whether or not he wanted to spend his money on things or not. He had about $11 and thought about the small wooden trains they had. What he really wanted were the HO scale Bachmann model trains, each were $75. In the bathroom before we left he was trying so hard not to cry about it. I really was so proud of him because I think he is getting a sense of how it is hard to save for the things we want most -- though I wish he had much smaller goals. He just knows the model trains are the most fun for him to watch and as close to the real thing as you get.

All told, it was a worthwhile day. I thought we would do the Big Fill, which is a 1.5 mile walking trail to see unfinished trestles, I think. They had a display of the trestle with model trains that was interesting enough for Zach. I was told the path was do-able with a stroller, but it was best that we passed, because the kids were so tired and it was a sunny day. (No shade there, either)

I hope that this visit gave Zach a better appreciation for the history behind these trains. He kept asking, 'but mom, why are they just parked there?' I tried to explain that it is simply so people can come learn about this important event that happened a very long time ago. I think the timing with this outing was good too, because we had just happened to recently have borrowed Peanuts Building of the Transcontinental Railroad video from the library. Other fun related books are Coolies and Iron Horses.

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum

Today was my first of my summer adventures - we took the short 20 minute drive up to Baltimore to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum, right in downtown Baltimore.

If you are a train enthusiast, parent or child of a train enthusiast, or really even anyone who enjoys history (that's me) this is an amazing place to visit. I learned all sorts of things about one of my favorite cities today - such as: Baltimore is the birthplace of American railroading. Who knew? The train ride we took (in a circa 1940s MARC car) took us along the first mile of commercial railroad track in America. THAT is serious historical stuff that even my kids think is cool!! Preston didn't even move from his seat once, just watched out the window. Of course, the train doesn't go fast at all, and the view is sometimes just of the not-so-great part of Baltimore, but you go past Mount Clare Museum House as well as the big building where they are refurbishing a bunch of old train cars (there are a lot of old and run down train cars outside that my boys thought were pretty cool.)

The exhibits inside the museum itself interested my sons for only a few minutes - a lot of model train cars, original sets of dishes from the dining cars and the original train station. Outside in the roundhouse, however - HOLY COW. A massive maze of engines and cars - so many it was hard to keep track of my kids. They were fascinated and so was I. There was so many to see and the building is so tall and imposing. Nearly all of them you can look inside and several of them you can walk around in. All my kids enjoyed pretending to be engineers (there is another massive steam engine in ANOTHER building that they played in for a long time too)
There was a little movie about trains showing and a train table nearby to amuse (or completely obsess about to the point of distraction) the boys. The staff was so friendly and helpful. Not once did I hear anyone fuss about my children - telling them to watch out or not to run or to keep quiet. It really feels like they are trying to cater to families with small children - although there is MUCH to see and read for adults, I think they are just careful to be kid-friendly.

The train ride was included with the steep price of admission ($36 for the four of us) but only runs once during the day, at 11:30. There is a big open area behind the roundhouse where the kids could run around and play on a big wooden train - there's also a huge model train set-up out there that was really neat.
Around on the OTHER side are MORE cars you can go in - an old dining car, a car with a model train movie inside, a car full of an actual model train set of Baltimore which my boys were REALLY excited about, as well as a caboose you can play in.I was so surprised that we lasted so long there and I was surprised at how interested I was in the exhibits. I'm not so much into trains, but the historical aspect of it - these trains in the context of the city and the time period when they were in use is very interesting to me. The kids LOVED it. I highly recommend it to families with young kids - but, one piece of advice. Bring at least two adults. I asked my sweet friend Kellie to join me incredibly last minute and I was SO glad she came with her son and two nephews (the extra boys in these pictures!!). The space is just huge and I would've been very hard pressed to keep track of everyone with only my own set of eyes. Oh, and you can't bring in your own food, you have to buy it at their snack bar, and I hate buying snack bar food. That's why we finally went home at 1:15 :)