Pumpkin Express chugs in for its first year

Saturday, Oct. 21, began overcast and with rain, but that didn’t stop people waiting to board the Pumpkin Express at Gopher State Railway Museum. This was the first year the local museum north of New Prague was offering rides to people to a pumpkin patch on its grounds where they could pick out pumpkins and then ride back to the main area of the museum.

Gopher State Railway Museum, located along Highway 21, is an all-volunteer, non-profit with its mission to educate people about trains and railroads. The group is working towards that by collecting, restoring, preserving and operating railroad equipment and artifacts. One way it has been doing that this past spring, summer and fall is by offering rides on its 1945 Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) train and caboose.

While the train ride was relatively brief, one-third of a mile, children were still excited about the ride. Families disembarked from the train and walked...

To see more on this story pick up the October 26,, 2017 print edition of The New Prague Times.