Thursday, April 23, 2009

Amtrak from Charlottesville to Staunton















Jocelyn and Ronan walk nearly every day. They walk downtown, to the park, etc., crossing train tracks where Ronan will usually see a train or two. He is fascinated with all big engines and equipment so Jocelyn thought it would be fun to take him on the train for a short ride from C-ville to Staunton, about an hour's ride.









I decided to go with them to help and so we talked it up for a day or two before the actual event. Yesterday was the day and Terry took us to the station which is small but very nice. The conductor looked just like Toppem Hat in the Thomas the Train books and he talked with Ronan a little bit at the station. When it was time to exit the station and go wait to board the train, Ronan was able to see the train coming down the track. He was fine with looking at it, but when it came time to board, he wanted NO part of it. "NO TRAIN!" he said over and over again. He started screaming and it didn't quit when we got seated. He continued and nothing we did would appease him. But, to his credit, once the train started, he was fine. We passed through areas he was familiar with, having walked them so much and he got to see lots of construction equipment. We could hear the train whistle. He watched out the window at the countryside as we pointed out things he would find interesting. At Crozet, we had to sit on a siding for about 20-25 minutes while we waited on the eastbound passenger train to go by. When it did, it truly "whooshed" by speeding much faster than our train went, but we were going uphill and the other was going downhill.

We told Ronan that Grandpa would be waiting at the other station and he was excited once we stopped and he could see Terry outside waiting on us. Both the conductor and the attendant talked with Ronan and told him to come back. Ronan said thank you to them. He is not shy and will repeat what you tell him to, so it was quite cute.

From there, we stopped at a couple shops before making our way back to the motorhome. Tom came out and after visiting a little, they went back home. It was quite an adventure for Ronan.

Till next time. . .

Dale

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Quite an adventure for Grandma Dale, also. heh heh

Snackmaster & Jan said...

That was a great trip. After the first time we took our kids and grandkids on a train ride, that is all they wanted to do. They (and we) still take train rides whenever they can.

JanC

Rockstar Programmer said...

Maybe I can take him on the Pike's Peak cog railway someday. If he screams, he'll run out of breath halfway up the mountain.