ATTN Railfans with Kids

Regular readers know that I'm a bit of a train buff, and a reader brought an upcoming Southern California event to my attention that may be of interest to some of you, especially if you have small kids.

The Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA will be hosting the kid's favorite "Thomas the Tank Engine" (an actual operating locomotive) November 8, 9, 11, and again November 15-16. Tickets are required for this event and can be purchased here (note the extra discount available).

The museum, which honestly I didn't even know existed, has quite a collection of rolling stock and runs regular train operations every weekend. They also have programs for special charters, birthday parties, and if you have a few extra bucks, they'll even teach you how to operate one of their locomotives. Personally, I want to drive this one...

...except for the fact is costs $285 an HOUR to operate. Maybe later.

On most weekends you can also arrange for a cab ride for just $10 more than the regular fare. That's a deal, and I might have to take them up on that. I wouldn't mind adding some in-cab footage to my train videos.

I think I'm going to try and get out there on the 8th, and I'll get some photos and video if I can. If you enjoy trains, or your kids are Thomas fans, put it on your calendar.

By the way, I have another train story from last weekend that I didn't mention. Saturday night the Mrs. and I were looking for something to do (the girl is away at college and the boy was gone to a band competition) and I had a bit of inspiration. I checked the Metrolink schedules and found there was a train that left Laguna Niguel at 6:13 and would arrive in Fullerton just before 7pm. Another train would leave Fullerton at 9:20 and get back to Laguna Niguel about 10. That would give us plenty of time to eat dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory at the Fullerton train station. It's just steps from the ramp.

The fares (especially on weekends) are pretty low, so we jumped aboard, had to wait awhile to get in the restaurant but had a tasty spaghetti dinner, and still finished in plenty of time before our ride home. I got in a little train watching as we saw several Metrolink and Amtrak units come through, saw the Southwest Chief make their stop on the way to Chicago, and got a close look at several freight trains that passed through on their way east. A couple of them were double-stack container trains that had to be well over a mile long each. That's a lot of freight heading somewhere.

We rode back to Laguna Niguel right on time and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I highly recommend it.

Good times...