Trains, Trains, Trains

As you probably already know, we have a great train enthusiast in our household. This summer we had planned to go and ride the steam train down at the Rusk/Palestine State Park. We called, made a reservation and thought we were all set to go until they called us back and said they needed to reschedule due to the heavy rains causing washouts on the track. Disappointed, we rescheduled and again thought we were all set. Fast forward to the new date 2 weeks later, I'm speedily packing up for a long weekend and the phone rings. You guessed it, they cancelled again. There had been a major washout and all train rides were cancelled indefinitely. Sigh. Oh well, I thought, at least I can stop stressing about getting all the packing done. I asked when they thought the train would be running again and was told they didn't know, but to call back in a few weeks. Sigh. Thankfully, Mr. E wasn't too upset...I believe he said something to the effect of "well, we can go to the zoo then" ;)

So, I was thinking about the train rides again today and wondering what the status was on the tracks and found this info.
http://www.texasstaterailroad.com/
Can you imagine being on the train the day this happened? Yikes!

Well, the American Heritage Railroad is taking over the train rides - I believe the State Parks lost their funding. From what I can see here, we could still go ride (as soon as the tracks are fixed), but it looks like the rates are higher as we suspected would happen.
http://www.texasstaterr.com/

Maybe we'll go sometime in the future, who knows. Or, maybe we'll stay a little closer to home for now and drive over to Grapevine to see what their trains are like.
http://www.grapevinesteamrailroad.com/depot.asp

Ah well :) For now, our little conductor will have to be content with running his batter-powered Thomas the Tank Engine trains around his tracks....in his room :)