Day Out with Thomas Part II

The Center of Attention for the Day

Al writes

Actually the phrase Day out with Thomas has a second meaning which we  will be touching on later in this post. As we previously described I did volunteer to help with the master of ceremony duties at  the day out with Thomas event.Harold Krewer has been doing this for a number of years and I volunteered to act as his backup and help him. We were there all three days this past weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Harold at work

 The weather was absolutely gorgeous all 3 days, so it was a pleasure to be outside at East Union. We were located in a tent in the center of the boarding area perhaps appropriately called the "special-needs" tent. The primary purpose of this tent was to assist customers who had missed their boarding times and we were able to find an additional trip that they would be able to take, in addition we were able to assist anyone who would have difficulties boarding a car on the normal steps in the vestibule.

I decided to look the part and dress in a bit of a period costume although I wasn't trying to represent any Thomas character in particular. I did get a number of compliments from the Thomas customers for the authentic bowler hat. Several folks asked if  I was Mr. Topham hat but he was also on-site.

Train service consisted of four cars operating on the streetcar loop and three trains other than the Thomas train operating on the Main line. Ridership on these other services appeared to be quite good. There was a need to turn away some passengers at the peak period between noon and 2 PM. There are some plans to provide additional capacity for next weekend.

Stephen Foglio decides on lunch

The special-needs tent also housed lunch for the volunteers, pizza slices, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, brats and hot dogs were available.

All in all these three days were quite pleasurable for me as it gave me the opportunity to meet and get to know many museum members that I had not previously met.It really is impressive to see the number of museum members and nonmembers that volunteer to support this effort.

Frank helps out on the 144

We also did a group dinner each evening which provided further opportunity to get to know some of the members. However Saturday night turned out to be a bit difficult due to the IRM crowd overwhelming the restaurant. It took over an hour to get our checks while listening to a band that left something to be desired.

The second dimension to the name Day Out With Thomas occurred on Sunday, due to the requirement to get the Nebraska Zephyr over the pit in barn 4. A few cars that normally don't get outside were able to see light of day. Frank has already posted a photo of West towns 141 which normally resides on track 41 however in order to make room for the Zephyr, both 141 in Sand Springs 68 were moved to barn 6. This required the reshuffling of some cars that are normally kept in barn six, so we have photos of a few cars that you don't normally see outside. The best of all was the Electroliner.

141 & 68 in barn 6

At this point I'm thinking that I will be getting the Thomas music out of my head just in time to do this all over again next weekend. It really is enjoyable to see the smiles and the excitement on the young children and some not so young children that attend this day one of the things that I do think about is how many of these children are future Museum members and rail fans.