A Train Ride at the Florida Railroad Museum

One of Sherry's quilting friend's husband is deeply involved with the Florida Railroad Museum, in Parish.  So we see a lot of their posts on Facebook.  Yesterday this one appeared at about noon, and I was inspired to take the ride.  It was just about the right time to leave in order to get on the 2:00 PM run.

We arrived about 1:30 PM and spent some time walking around and looking at the exhibits.

The lower two pictures are the train that we would be boarding.  The engine is not there yet.

There were two modern looking passenger cars, with a caboose at the end (on the right).  The first car, on the left in the lower right picture, was open to the air.  We decided to board the open car.

Sherry and I sat in the first seat.  Looking down the track in front of us, we could see the engine approaching.

The car host warned us to be prepared for a jolt.  It actually was not bad.

The ride was a bit bumpy and noisy.  We were moving at about twelve miles per hour, seeing mostly dense vegetation on each side of the track.

At times we passed some farm land, barely visible beyond the vegetation along the track.  We saw some serious irrigation equipment in several places.

The car host told us that these orange trees were covered with fruit a week ago.  It had been harvested during the week.

After about half an hour we arrived at our destination.  There are more museum exhibits here and additional train cars and engines waiting to be restored.  Sherry and I got off the train and walked around here, as did most of the passengers.




There is a side track here, which  the crew uses to move the engine to the other end of the train.

They don't turn the engine around.  They just move it to the other end of the train for the trip back in the other direction.


This woman, a museum volunteer,  had been in the open car with us.  Now she climbs out of the car and down to the track.  She sets the brakes on the car and then decouples the car from the engine.  (Not exactly a delicate operation!)

Then she climbs into the engine and drives it ahead and then back onto the side track.  She takes the engine around the train cars and back onto the main track.

She will drive the train on the return trip.

We can't see this, but the engine will be connected to the caboose for the return trip.  Our open car will be at the end of the train and we will have an unrestricted view back down the track.

Bromiliads

Someone put a bunch of bromeliads out beside Lake Magdalene Boulevard yesterday. 

I picked up four of them and transplanted them in my back yard.

Used some of my compost for them. This was the first time I have used it.