Waiting For The Train

On Sunday, Sept. 19th, Ryan's dad called us after 4pm and told us there was a steam engine coming through town that would be stopping at the Boise Train Depot. The newspaper said it was scheduled to arrive at 5pm. We woke Oliver up from his nap and got ourselves ready to go!
I wanted to be there to see it approaching. We got there before 5, but as we were walking up to the tracks, a lady told us the train had been delayed (or the newspaper had announced it wrong in the first place) and it wouldn't be there until 7 or 7:30. Bummer!
Since Ryan's parents hadn't arrived yet, and since they live a few blocks away from the depot, we went over there to hang out and wait. And eat brownies. :)

As 7:00 was nearing, we went back over to the depot. We didn't want to miss the train!

This is Big Mike. "He" is parked at the depot permanently, surrounded by a big black fence.


Looks like they could have placed the bars a little closer together. The kids can slink right through! I am glad Oliver didn't go all the way in- it would have taken a lot of coaxing to get him away from the train. I wonder how many kids have squeezed through and refused to come out.


Jane, Ollie, Ethan.


Notice how dim the light is getting.

Hmmm... still waiting for the live train... how about some more pictures by the dead train?



The ghostly depot. My camera doesn't take very good night shots. Too bad the train was so late.

Finally, after 8:00, the moment we'd all been waiting for... The sound of the distant whistle, coming closer, and closer, and closer... ("whistling, whistling, whistling in the dark"...) The giant steam engine rumbled down the tracks into view. Well, sort of. We could see the light and the outline of the black train against the darkness.

This is just the bottom half of part of the engine. It was immense!

Check out those parts!

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the whole engine. But it was too dark, and when it's dark my camera doesn't know what to focus on. Either that, or I don't know how to work my camera. Believe me, I have tried every setting.

If you look closely, you can see the engineer leaning out the side. At least I assumed that's who he was. I could see inside some of the cars, and it was fun to see different workers on board moving about. In the car right behind the engine I could see some shelves with food- crackers and soups and stuff. So that was cute. I guess when those fellas are on long rides they need a good supply of crackers.

Oliver is crazy about trains. The rest of us think they're pretty awesome too. It was a nice evening and I'm glad we got to spend it waiting for that train.