Happy father’s day!

For a father's day treat we finally followed Ben's suggestion to take a ride on the Blue Bird Special excursion train that he's been spending so much of his time working on.

Andy, Sue, and I arrived at the Waterville depot a bit early for the 4:00 pm ride.  Here’s the train pulling into the station.

After the previous trip’s passengers had departed we took our seats near the back of the rear coach.  The coaches are actually converted trolly cars that were built back in the mid 1920’s!  Note the cool wicker backed seats.

We chose our seats in the back because Ben was working as brakeman today which means he was on the rear platform.  I think his main tasks were to signal the engineer with a flag when he needed to blow the whistle for crossings when the train was backing up (the first half of the trip) and to make sure people like me didn’t fall off the back!

The trip went from Waterville nearly to Grand Rapids, about six miles, and back again.  A nice slow relaxing ride through the rural Ohio countryside, all the better because we could chat with Ben.

After we returned to the depot Ben gave me the Grand Tour of the locomotive.  It’s a huge thing but it appears to be pretty simple.  I’m pretty sure that they don’t let everyone see this stuff!

It was fun to take a train ride and to see what’s Ben’s been doing with his spare time.  As a bonus we stopped for ice cream on the way home.  All & all a Grand Father’s Day Out!!

cheers - dj