Railway museum brings the fun to Halloween on rails
New Prague’s Nick Siefert, 6½, enjoyed a visit to the Gopher State Railway Museum’s annual Pumpkin Express ride Saturday with his mom and dad, Rebbecca and Tom. The family enjoyed a short train ride on a new line of track to pick up a pumpkin and then return back to the museum for exploring old train cars, fire trucks and hot chocolate and cookies. The Seifert family was among approximately 670 visitors to the museum on the east side of Highway 21 just north of New Prague.
It took some of the young children a little while to warn up to the notion of boarding a loud train from yesteryear and riding on a set of rails to pick out a pumpkin in time for Halloween.
But shortly after reaching the pumpkin patch at Gopher State Railway Museum Saturday, any apprehension quickly disappeared. Charlotte Theis, age 3, took her time selecting a pumpkin and then couldn’t wait for the train ride back to the museum. She visited the museum with a younger sibling, Grace, and her parents, Jess and Sam of Cologne.
Saturday, the railway museum hosted its annual Halloween Pumpkin Express. For a small fee, adults and children enjoyed a train ride to the pumpkin patch where they could pick out pumpkins and then return to the museum for exploring old railroad equipment, vintage fire trucks and enjoy hot chocolate from Ettlin’s Café of New Prague and cookies from Franke’s Bakery in Montgomery.
Back at the museum, 2-year-old Asher McCarthy of Faribault tried his hand at driving an early-1970s fire truck which in its day carried...
To see more on this story pick up the October 17, 2024 print edition of The New Prague Times.
Category:
Publication:
