Back on the Train Gang

Not to be outdone by his sister, my nephew got his own private vacay in July. As I have mentioned in previous posts, he is a huge fan of trains. So, we went to the train Meccas of Altoona and Scranton, Pennsylvania, with a few other sites thrown in for good measure.

Admittedly, I am not a train buff myself, but I enjoy these jaunts to train attractions because I see things I probably wouldn’t see otherwise, and there is usually a tie-in to something historical, which I do have an interest in. Everyone wins!

Day 1: We left on a Saturday afternoon and drove to Johnstown, PA, for the night. We had planned to take the incline and see the view of Johnstown below before turning in. However, we ended up parking at the top, which was good, because the incline was not working (and we found out the next day, had not been working for a while), but we still got to see the view and watch some fireworks off in the distance.

Dusky view of Johnstown looking down the steep incline tracks

 

…and dusk turned to night

Day 2: Our reason for staying in Johnstown was to ride the Amtrak Pennsylvanian to Altoona, thus getting to ride the Horseshoe Curve. In order to do this, one person in the group drove to Altoona to pick the rest of us up. Otherwise, we would have to wait until evening to make the trip back to Johnstown. It was about an hour ride and pretty uneventful except for going around the Curve. It is a regular commuter rail line, I believe between Cleveland and NYC, so there were people snoozing away this morning, loaded down with luggage and blankets and pillows.

At the station in Johnstown, my dad, who never knows a stranger, struck up a conversation with a couple of fellas sitting on his bench. Turns out they just got out of prison and were heading home, with 19″ HD TV boxes in hand. I thought maybe they were using the boxes for luggage, but my dad, also never shy about getting the whole story, asked them if they got TVs upon release from prison. They just laughed, but they never said. Hmmm. Our tax dollars at work.

Our prison pals sat near us on the train. Those cuffs made me think of Red and Andy Dufresne.

Pretty soon, an announcement was made that we were going to pass through the world-famous Horseshoe Curve! This was pretty cool, as you could see both ends of the train at some point. Unfortunately, it was impossible to photograph. Here’s the best I came up with:

Here we are on one side of the Curve, with another train coming the opposite direction. (There are three tracks.)

We made it to Altoona right on time. We wanted to visit the Altoona Railroaders Memorial  Museum and go back to the Horseshoe Curve to watch trains pass, but those things weren’t open yet, so we grabbed a snack and spent a little time at Lakemont Park.

Lakemont Park is an old-timey, pay-as-you-go park with mostly unremarkable rides, but it is inexpensive and quaint. My nephew is not much for thrill rides, so we spent most of our time playing the (of course!) train-themed miniature golf. It was in need of some care, but the theming was just so cute. I tried to find photos of the golfcourse online before we went, but there were none to be seen. So, I proudly present some of the only photos you will ever see of Lakemont Park’s mini golf:

Ha–that looks like our van in the background. This place was pretty deserted. We were the only ones playing golf. And, clearly, we parked really close.

They’ve been workin’ on the railroad.

I think we passed through one of these tunnels near Horseshoe Curve, but I could never totally verify that fact. Amtrak didn’t announce it if we did.

Even if the greens were quite wrinkly, the water features didn’t work, and it needed some paint, we had a lot of fun on this course.

Now, the REAL reason I wanted to visit Lakemont Park: it boasts that it houses the WORLD’s oldest rollercoaster, Leap-the-Dips. I had to get my butt on that thing!

Leap-the-Dips goes only about 10 mph and is 41 feet high, but it is a thrill ride nonetheless. The thrill is that there are no restraints, it looks like it could collapse at any moment, and you do fly up out of the seat whilst leaping those dips. I had never been terrified of a coaster after riding it until this ride. Loved it.

It looks innocent enough.

In this day of double restraints and unnecessary seatbelts on coasters, it’s refreshing just to fly all around on a seat. IF you need to grab something, you can lean way forward and grasp that bar. In the front seat at least.

I also loved that this coaster required the operator to physically maneuver the car around the bend until the lift chain could grab it. It was a really cool experience to ride such an old thrill machine!

It was now time to move on to more train-y things, so we went to the Railroaders Memorial Museum. This place was so well done and showed how railroaders lived in the heyday of train transportation times (yes, that is an official historical era). Also, there were a bunch of old rusty trains outside, which is where my nephew spent a lot of time.

This one was a particularly big deal.

I heart this photo because my nephew was not going to miss a thing, even old stuff locked up in this building.

I would recommend this museum. It had some really cool interactive exhibits and lots of old trains.

Our next stop was the Horseshoe Curve Visitors Center, where we could watch trains go around the Curve. Their incline was working!

It gets a bit hairy when the two incline cars pass.

I still couldn’t get a photo of both sides of the Curve. It was pretty cool to see trains passing where we had just been hours earlier. Pretty many came by in the short time we were there, so I imagine a real trainspotter could spend a long time here.

We were treated to this gorgeousness from the Hampton Inn parking lot in Wilkes Barre.

Day 3: Today we hit the bomb diggity train site of Steamtown National Historic Park. Even for a non-train aficionado, this place was really awesome.

The highlight here was the Big Boy. I was hoping for a double hamburger dripping with tartar sauce, but this was good, too.

There is a cool walkway over a lot of the train yard, so we got a birdseye view of the trains below, and there were quite a few.

Whoops! Guess we should have read the sign before standing here like dufuses waving at the train passing under us.

Day 4: We hadn’t planned anything for today but the drive home. We swam in the hotel pool all morning, and then hit the road where I miraculously spotted a road sign for William McKinley’s birthplace! Bonus presidential stop! I can’t remember the town name now, but it had a marker and a reproduction of his birthplace as well as a monument.

The monument contained awesome displays like the McKinleys’ sleigh and these VERY authentic dummies riding in it.

Also at this memorial: a bust of Warren G. Harding (sure, why not?), replete with bird’s nest.

 

Or not! (Seriously, that bird’s nest disappeared like 10 minutes after we first saw it.)

We hadn’t had our fill of McKinley, so we swung by Canton and visited his grave (dead prez!) and the Stark County Museum and McKinley Presidential Library and Museum. We also ate some delicious pulled pork sammiches at Kennedy’s Bar-B-Que just across the street.

We had an excellent time!