A Day Out with Thomas the Tank Engine

Phil here ... Harrison is on school vacation (Feb 08 to Feb 19) so mid-week entertainment is back on the map! Yesterday (Monday Feb 11) I took Harrison and Parker on the train to York in northern England to see the National Rail Museum. Luckily, there was also a big Thomas the Tank Engine event on at the same time (only once a year for a couple of weeks). Parker started liking Thomas a few months ago and we have been reading his adventures at bed time. It was awesome with characters and huge life-size working engines from the stories. We got a ride behind the engine "Deisel" and "Percy" took us on a short steam train ride ... that was interesting in itself because we were in older carriages from the 1940's and they had warning posters about what to do in the case of wartime blackouts and bombings.

Among the highlights was getting our picture with Sir Topham Hatt (aka "the Fat Controller" who manages the fictional Tidmouth Rail Network) and his number 1 engine Thomas. The kids also got their faces painted like tigers and lions (which looked great with their longer hair resembling animal manes).

The Rail Museum was amazing too and we saw lots of train history including memorabilia over the years from "the Flying Scotsman" (the 10:00 am train departing daily from London going to Edinburgh), early locomotives, a high-speed bullet train from Japan, turning wheels, and many engines and cars that served as the Royal Trains for the exclusive use of the Royal Family when traveling by rail.

I remember being told that my great-grandfather Johnston worked on the rail lines in Northern Ontario and that my Grandpa Johnston (who is now deceased) was born near Jackfish Lake in Northern Ontario close to the rail lines. Jackfish, now a ghost town and no longer existing, is where the last connecting spike was driven, connecting the railroads in eastern and western Canada. My Great Grandfather Garfield Tomlinson worked as a train engineer on the Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway and used to drive trains leaning out of the window and holding a pipe between his teeth (quite an image). Maybe that is part of the reason why the boys and I love trains so much.