If you haven’t been to Hermann Park in a few years, these will be new to you. They came online around the beginning of 2008, replacing the old “modern” diesel minitrains, which had been going around and around for nearly half a century and were held together, at that point, mostly by duct tape and improvisational genius mechanics. They are, let us say, glorious… all red and green and blue and gleaming brass. They’re not actually steamers, but they sure look it, with big smokestacks and big headlights and oversized “drive” wheels and angled-rail cowcatchers out front. (small calves only, please; these ARE miniature trains.)
Chance Rides’ pride and joy is claimed to be the single most popular park and tram loco in the country. It’s a 1/3rd-scale version of the train that every Real American Boy grew up wanting to drive – the original CP Huntington, which you can still see if you go out to the California Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento. The original has an interesting history – it was the engine used during the construction of the western branch of the Trans-Continental Railroad. It may not be The Train That Won The West, but it’s got as good a claim as any other.
Even in small scale it’s got wonderful lines and appealing proportions. (Of course for many of us this was the proto-train… the first things we learned to call “train” were cartoons and children’s illustrations.) Someone on Wikipedia claims that the C P Huntington was also the inspiration for the illustration of “The Little Engine That Could.” Someone else, with more academic honesty in his heart than romance in his soul, marked this “citation needed.”
But it IS, for all its aesthetics, a small train for small persons. With short seats, very hard, set close together… and not a lot of suspension. It’s marginally less cramped than it would be if I hadn’t become smaller (I’ve dropped about 40 pounds since 2013), but it’s still a far from comfortable ride. The recording comes on, telling me that the ride is two miles long and takes about 18 minutes. I can, however, opt to exit at any of the three en-route stations to stretch, wander around, and take pictures, and catch the next train. There are two trains in service so they run about every ten minutes or so, in theory. I grab a few shots of the train and the “scenery” (such as it is…) as it winds through the picnic area, and exit the train at the first stop. Not so much because of my legs, though there’s some of that, but because I want the “Urban Park Train” shot:
And the Houston Hermann Park Train shot, with Miller Outdoor Theatre in the background.
After which I wandered down beside the reflecting duck pond for the “out of the urban jungle” shot:
and then caught the train at the next station. That 18 minute train ride wound up taking me about an hour and a half, all told.