Railway Days

This weekend we surprised Ryder and took him to Railway Days. Railway Days is an annual festival held at a Railway Museum in central Illinois. They had so many train engines, cars, cabooses, parts, and special vehicles on display. We were able to walk through refurbished train cars that once served as the president's home on the rails. This car in particular looked an awful lot like the Hogwarts Express and I was obsessed. They had so many different sizes of model trains set up, some even inside of real trains, that we could watch and learn all about. But the best part by far were the all day passes. These passes allowed us to ride as many trains as we wanted the entire day.

Of course we waited for the steam train because it's not every day that you see one in person let alone ride one! They are also Ryder's favorite train engines. We watched the old diesel train and freight train come and go and we waved at the passengers as they left the stations. While we waited for our train to arrive we rode on a barrel train that a farmer had made. Ryder surprised us by being able to pedal a pedal car all by himself! When it was finally our time to board Ryder was so excited. He chose to ride behind the tender (where they keep the coal ;) ) and so we found our spot on the open car. Thankfully it was a gorgeous day and the sun and cool breeze was perfect. Ryder decided he wasn't a fan of the whistle in person but he loved the ride. He especially loved watching the steam shoot out from the chimney and the sides of the engine. The train rode us into town and then back to the station. All together it was about a 40 minute ride. Which brought us back to the museum just in time for lunch. We rode the motor cars and a few other trains before calling it a day. Right as we were about to head for our car we were given the opportunity to go into the engineer's cab of the steam engine. This was amazing! Ryder and I got to see all of the levers and the fire box which was wide open! They even through a piece of coal in for Ryder to see. 

After listening to Ryder shout "all aboard!" all day and seeing the excitement on his face I think we will definitely be going back next year. Now we need to work on our train safety because I'm pretty sure he thinks that it's okay to walk onto every train he sees.