There is a railroad museum in Chattanooga, so I was checking it out online, thinking a train ride would be fun.  So as I am looking at what they had to offer.  There weren’t many rides I was interested in this time of year but I found one for today that was a 3 1/2 hour ride.  Sounded like a lot of fun and just the right amount of time.  So I bought the tickets on-line.  Hmmmm, maybe I’ll mapqwest this to get a rough idea how long it will take to get there.  Whoops!  It is an hour away from here.  We have to go to the L & N Depot Museum in Etowah, TN.  Oh well, it will be a new adventure all the way.  We’ll get to see some more of Tennessee we haven’t seen before.

So we head off  to Etowah for our Hiwassee River Railroad Adventure!

We were told to arrive 1/2 hour early.  That gave us plenty of time to check out the other passengers and to determine how crowded this train was going to be.  There were a few kids that had whistles, we’ll be sure to stay clear of them ;).  At the appropriate time, we had to board a school bus for the the short ride to the train.

Whee! A bus ride!

Gary and I wondered when the last time we were on a school bus…..been a long time. There was a young couple in front of us with a son that looked to be about 3 or 4.  The little boy is looking for the seat belt.  His mother told him there were no seat belts on the bus and the father mumbles, “that’s why we drive you to school”.  Heck, that was half of the fun of riding the school bus.  Sitting in the back of the bus, the most coveted of seats, waiting for a bump so you’d go flying up in the air….wheeeee! Parents of today are just too over protective :).

Once we arrived at the train and presented our boarding pass, we checked out the seats.  We could sit almost anywhere, except the dome car.  We didn’t shell out the extra money for the dome car so it is off to coach for us

Front view

Back view, we are car number 1

Pretty comfortable seats and I had my smiling companion with me

Who’s that guy?

Plus there was a stow away He didn’t have to pay 🙂

So they started the ride out by going down the track about a mile and stopping.  They had to switch the engine around to the front of the train.  The Conductor had to get out to make sure it released/hooked up correctlyWhen the engine was released

Hi Thomas!

it sailed by us on the other track and then hooked up to the front of the train.  After a little bang, we were off!  Look!  Even while on a train we were able to spot a boat, another Chris Craft

This one needs some luvin

Now let me just say, the train ride was a lot of fun and the Conductor keep up a nice narration of the areas we were passing and the history of the train but it is very had to take pictures, out of a window, from a moving train.  So I took about 300 pictures but only about 75 were any good and that is being generous :).  And don’t worry, I didn’t put all 75 in this post ;).

We did travel along the Hiwassee River which was on the left side of the train going up, and the left side of the train going down.  This river, below the dam, is like a little Colorado river.  It is pretty shallow and has some nice little rapids

Rapids

Serious rafters

Kool raft

Not only did people do the rapids, there were also a lot of kayakers

Kayakers

Kayaks for rent

and they had “drift” boats

Drift Boat

Bad picture, but the boat had just oars to propel them and they were slooped on the side and had high bows.  This is what the fishermen used.  Apparently trout fishing is the best on this river.

The water above the dam

is suppose to be very deep, 50 to 60 feet.  There is apparently an engine that flew off the tracks and ended up in a very deep hole on the river.  We’ll keep our fingers crossed that that doesn’t happen to us!

So anyway, the way the train ride worked is you sat on one side of the train on the way up and looked at rocks 

rocks

and more rocks for an hour and half then when the train got to the top and the engine switched to the back of the train for the pull down, you were able to switch sides with the people on the other side of the train so you could see  lots of trees and

 river

 river

 and more river :).  They said there were still some of the old telegraph poles along the rail, (which I saw but couldn’t quite capture in a picture 😦 ) they used to telegraph the next train station when the train left the current station so the next station would know when they left.

As this track basically makes a loop, we did go over and under an old train trestle

Makes you wonder how it can hold all that weight.

On the way down the Conductor, a retired fireman and EMT, played the banjo for us.

He was a jack of all trades and a very good banjo player!  At one point along the ride the train stopped.  Turned out there was a tree that fell across the tracks.  That trusty Conductor got out there with his new chain saw and cut the puppy up.  He is a good person to have around :).

Well, we made it back safe and sound, the ride lasted about 4 1/2 hours.  Just enough time.  We really enjoyed the ride and the scenery and would highly recommend it.

Our next stop is back to the Hunter Museum, this time to check out the inside.