Museum of Transportation For a Birthday Train Day

Our present to Little Hoss for his 6th birthday was a trip to the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis.  He absolutely loves trains and was excited for the trip.

He got to go where he wanted and do (more or less!) what he wanted to do.  Those little hands did a lot of touching.

Of course we picked the hottest day so far to make our visit.

-sigh-

Look at those two hamming it up!  We'd been there 10 minutes...

Amazing how long a kid wants to pull a bell rope.

Next was a trolley ride.

The trolley used that day was a converted "L" car from Chicago.  They liked that since they've ridden the L many times.

The 'roll down' windows amazed them.

Little Bird gives a donation for the upkeep of the trolley.  They use the old fare takers to put the donations in.

Next was a guided tour through some of the sleeper/Pullman cars.  Charles was a fantastic guide.  He encouraged the kids to ask questions and gave very good answers that they could understand.

These cars were very nice!

Early sleeper cars... not so much.

But as the years went by they improved.

A kitchen in one of the newer, more luxurious Pullman sleeper trains.  All chrome.

The dining car.

How about those prices?

Google "Pullman Porters".  It's a very interesting bit of history.

A school bus train.  Hoss wants to go to school in such a manner!

He loves the big locomotives.

We made a few rides on the miniature train.  See us in the mirror?

They knew to pick the back seat to ride in...ALL ABOARD!!!

And they had a few go-arounds with the handcars.  They are powered by hand cranking to machine.  They burned their energy on that one.

Down the track.

The day got seriously hot...the car read 102 when we left.  Since this was Hoss's birthday present I 'negotiated' a deal with him.  If we could leave 'now', we would go get frozen yogurt and come back in the cooler fall to spend another day.

Hoss countered with frozen yogurt now AND when we came back.

Done deal!

Good bye trains!