I played hookey from my job yesterday and took my 5 year old nephew up to Sacramento to ride Thomas who's appearing there through this weekend. I've heard plenty of gnashing of teeth when this caricature of a steam locomotive is mentioned but had not seen the event in person until yesterday.
The Thomas used was a non-powered version and the train was the normal Sacramento Southern excursion train pulled by WP #913 with Thomas on the back (front on the return trip) The train was nine cars long had two extra cars added from the Yolo Short Line. Thomas ran every 45 minutes from around 10 am until about 5 pm. Each train was sold out. I would estimate that about 10,000 kids with parents were there yesterday.
the CSRRM had the Bowker on display outside so kids could get there photo taken in a locomotive. They also had the Mattole Lumber #1 and Kiso Forest #1 on display with the Mattole locomotive steamed up and running on a short segment of 3 foot track.
In the car shed were set up various activities related to Thomas such as coloring, drawing, ink stamps, play railroads, etc. for kids to play with. There was a hand car that kids could operate with their parents.
UP had represenatives of Operation Lifesaver there and two Locomotive simulators that kids could run.
Inside the Museum the cab of the Cab Forward was opened to visitors and a docent explained how steam locomotives were used.
A large tented pavilion was set up in the middle of all of this to sell plentiful Thomas merchandise.
While the majority of kids were outside around the area of Thomas there was a constant stream of kids with parents in tow inside the museum. The biggest hits seemed to be operating Thomas layouts, the hand car ride, and the locomotive tours. My nephew was on cloud nine the whole time and the biggest hit for him was'nt Thomas but operating the UP locomotive simulators, we had to do this twice. He now really want to have a model railroad (not Thomas play trains) and is begging me to help him build an HO scale layout (which I told him we could do this fall).
While many may look down their noses at this phenomenon I'd say it's probably the best thing that's happened in years to our hobby and passion. How many other kids feel like my nephew and now want more active involvement with trains?
As a narrow gauge Thomas is planned to be built I feel it would be a positive move to try to get this to show up a Chama sometime in the future. Although Chama is remote I overheard parents who had come from San Francisco and the south bay and had taken over two hours to get to Sacramento.
That's my $0.02 worth. now I'll get of my soapbox and you can get the rotten tomatoes...
