Monthly Archives: July 2009
Big Trains, Little Trains, and, uh, More Trains…
We’re presently at Roamer’s Retreat Campground between Gap, PA and Kinzers, PA, about 55 miles west of Philadelphia.
Roamers Retreat
We’re here until Wednesday to check out Independence Hall and other Revolutionary sites in Philadelphia, but as a bonus, we’re in some beautiful Amish / Pennsylvania Dutch countryside, with rolling farms of corn and neat homes dotting the landscape.
And I mean, you’re really got to admire a state where the town of Blue Ball, PA is right down the road from the town of Intercourse, PA, with the town of Paradise, PA close by.
Last night, after we got in and set up, we headed out in our toad looking for a place to eat supper and came across Miller’s Smorgasbord. Smorgasbord is the word for buffet around here.
And it was worth the stop. Really good food.
Jan woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather, so we decided to put off our Philadelphia roadtrip until tomorrow.
So, after puttering around for a while, I headed out to track down the National Toy Train Museum that I had come across a brochure for.
In getting there, I came across two other train places, The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and the Red Caboose Motel.
Red Caboose Motel
When I saw the sign for the Red Caboose Motel, I was thinking maybe, you know, there was a red caboose out front, or even, the motel office is in a caboose.
But no, every room is a caboose. They”re just not all red.
And the motel restaurant is in a old railroad dining car.
Red Caboose Motel 1
Red Caboose Motel 2
Red Caboose Motel 3
They’re painted up in the color schemes of pretty much every railroad, including some that no longer exist.
Neat!
Right next door to the Red Caboose Motel is the National Toy Train Museum.
Toy Train Museum
When I was about 12 I had a large (16 ft x 6 ft) HO gauge train layout. But then I discovered girls and the model trains kind of faded away. Of course, it didn’t help that we moved to South America and I sold it all.
Anyway, I alway enjoy seeing different layouts and model trains, so this was a real treat.
They had layouts in all the standard gauges, S, O, HO, G, etc., and some very nice layouts that were in operation.
Toy Train Museum 1
Toy Train Museum 2
Toy Train Museum 3
Toy Train Museum 4
Toy Train Museum 5
They had model trains going back to the 1860’s all the way up to the present day. It’s really amazing how long toy trains have been around. I guess about as long as real trains.
After leaving the Toy Train Museum, I headed down to the Big Train Museum, or, The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, as they call it.
Railroad Museum of PA
But more about this, tomorrow.
Baltimore and Buggies…
We left Lake Fairfax County Park in Reston, VA about 10 am, heading north for Pennsylvania. Kinzers, PA to be exact.
And things were going fine until we hit Baltimore. Actually, I would like to hit Baltimore.
It deserves to be punished. Twice.
Because that’s how many times we were forced to drive thru DOWNTOWN Baltimore. Yes. I said DOWNTOWN. In a 61 foot long vehicle!
We were heading up I-95 coming into Baltimore and approaching the Fort McHenry tunnel when we found out we weren’t allowed in the tunnel because we have propane on board. They consider it a HazMat problem.
Anyway, we were dumped off the Interstate at the edge of downtown Baltimore, and left on our on.
No signs telling us of alternate routes, nothing. And the only way we could go was straight into Baltimore. DOWNTOWN Baltimore!
Finally we saw a sign directing trucks to I-95. And we took it.
Big mistake.
We ended up back on the Interstate just one exit down from where we got off before. And had to get off again.
Suddenly we were heading right back into Baltimore just like before. On the same street.
I found a place to pull over and plotted a new course on my GPS mapping program thru town, around the tunnel, and out on US 30 back to I-95.
And it would have worked great, except for two things.
The Baltimore Orioles were playing and a lot of streets were blocked off because of the game. Streets I wanted to drive on.
And the other streets I wanted to drive on all seem to be under construction.
But after wandering around for over an hour, we finally made it out of beautiful, downtown Baltimore.
Soon we were in Pennsylvania, motoring through Amish country. And there were Amish buggies everywhere. We had to be very careful going over the hills.
Amish Buggy
Finally, we were less than a mile from our RV park and at a intersection a sign said “Low Clearance Ahead”.
No height menitioned
And then less than a half mile from the park we come to the Low Clearance, a railroad underpass with a sign that “Height: 12 feet 0 inches”
And we’re 12 feet 6 inches.
I can drop about 6 inches by dumping the airbag suspension, but you can’t always trust these signs down to the inch. Sometimes what will happen is the the street will repaved multiple times under the underpass, raising the level of the street, shortening the height, and making the signs wrong.
So we didn’t chance it.
But we had to unhook the toad, so I could turn around in the small parking area where we had stopped in front of the underpass. About a mile down the road we found an overpass instead of an underpass.
At last, a few minutes later, we were pulling into the park.
It had been a very long day.
And I still hate Baltimore!
