We Rode The Train

Saturday morning my husband told me after breakfast he had a surprise for us. Mostly for William but fun for the whole family. We got ready to go out for the day packed some snacks and headed out.

On our way he told me he found a really cool train ride up in Portland. A work colleague told him about it and knew our son loved trains.

William and I rode the Amtrak over a year ago to see family. He liked it but this was before he was really into Thomas & Friends and it was a Red Eye type journey so he slept the whole way. This time we knew he was going to be super excited and amazed!

We ended up at the Oregon Pacific Railroad Heritage Center in Portland near the OMSI. Now these were not like the present day passenger trains. These engines were very old and nothing like the Amtrak or Transit trains we had rode before. These were working Diesel and Steam trains! 

We had about an hour to explore the center before our ride. Inside we found four enormous engines, three stream locomotives and one diesel engine. 

All were still working engines and the center itself was a working repair and fabrication shop. One of the 3 stream locomotives was being worked on right in front of us visitors. We got to see inside the massive cab of the impressive 700 locomotive, which during December is used as the well known Polar Express in the area.

You can see in the pictures just how big these machines are. Some of the wheels are literally over 6 feet high. 

At first William was in shock and a bit terrified of the engines. I don't think his little brain could wrap around the fact that they were actually in front of him and not on TV. That and he definitely was amazed by how huge they are. But after some time walking around he warmed up and was super excited to be near his beloved trains. He even started to say they were the Thomas and Friends Engines, Hiro, Skarloey, Spencer, Diesel and Salty. 

Finally our turn to board the train came. The conductor noticed how into this experience William was and picked us to ride in a special place on the train. We were one of two families to ride up in the Cupola of the Caboose. This is where the conductors themselves would ride. Up in the Cupola we got a 360 view of the sights not just out the left or right windows. 

We had a fun 45 minute ride along the river. The cool part was that all this was only $5 per person! The museum is free and it's all non-prophet. Your $5 actually goes just to the maintenance and upkeep of the trains and center. It's run by volunteers who are all around to help and answer questions and give cool info. The train rides are every hour after noon until 4:30 every Saturday. This just happened to be the first weekend it began. The train runs from January until November. I'm sure I'm missing more information. So check out their website HERE

I would totally recommend this for all train lovers and families. It was honestly one of the best family adventures we have been on!