August 7: Coopersville-Marne Train Ride

Coopersville & Marne coaches (we rode in the middle one)

I'm not even sure where I first learned about the Coopersville & Marne Train Rides, but I've been wanting to take the boys for most of the summer.  They only run Wednesdays and Saturdays right now at 11am and 1pm.  This Saturday's forecast was the best we'd seen in a l-o-n-g time, so Seth and I decided to surprise the boys with a real train ride!  

If you know my boys at all, you know it's an understatement to say they are obsessed with trains.  Obsessed!  So they were thrilled to be able to actually ride a real train!  

Getting on board with Conductor Cindy's help.

The whole event was fabulous!  We boarded the antique coach (circa 1920s) and were pulled by a 1950s diesel engine.  All the railway workers are volunteers, and our Conductor, Cindy, was so pleasant and great with kids!  It was about a 30 minute train ride to Marne.  We were then invited to detrain to watch the engine get coupled up for the return trip to Coopersville.  Of course the boys knew what it meant for a train to be coupled up thanks to their Thomas the Tank Engine resources.  Once we were back at the station, we asked if we could explore the other coaches and that was no problem at all!  One of the other cars was another coach and the other was a dining car with tables and chairs.  Both Koen and Ty thought the whole experience was so cool!  

Seth with Tysen

Valerie, Brielle, and Koen

Apparently, the railway has a number of special train rides throughout the year...a train robbery (I think we'll wait til the kids are older for this excitement), the bunny train at Easter, the pumpkin train at Halloween, and the Santa train at Christmas.  One of these might be a fun excursion in the future.