Oregon Steam Train

When we went to Oregon, I was excited to see there was a steam train that ran through Rockaway Beach, because the children have always wanted to see a working steam locomotive! The Heber Valley Railway was fun, but its steam locomotive isn't running right now, and they were quite disappointed about that. I wanted them to ride this one so much that I specifically made sure we were staying through a weekend because the train only runs on Saturdays and Sundays (this time of year, anyway). It's a pretty short train ride, it just goes down the coast for a few miles and then back up, about an hour and a half total. But it's beautiful and even if it hadn't been, we were riding a train! Automatic fun.

We made sure to get there early so we could look the train over and see all the pistons and cylinders up close. We heard the train whistle from our cottage as the train came by, and I've never seen the kids get their shoes on and ready to go so fast! They were so excited.

The fireman was so nice! He saw how interested all the kids were in the train, and let them come up into the cab and look around at all the valves and pipes. We could feel the heat, and see the fire glowing yellow in the firebox! This steam locomotive runs on oil, the man told us.

Junie got all sooty in the cab, which seemed right somehow.

We walked through the indoor car, but decided we'd rather sit outside in the roofless car. It was cloudy and kind of misty, but not cold.

When the train started up, it was so loud and exciting! Whooshing and hissing and clouds of steam everywhere.

Such pretty scenery along the coast! I could never get tired of it.

At Garibaldi you can get off and look around at some of the other old trains. There's a little playground to play on, and boats in a harbor.

These little ones were always picking daisies and buttercups, everywhere we went!

Daisy was very impressed by the conductor and asked me to take her picture with him.

Marigold enjoyed the ride SO much! Lots of cars and people waved at the train as it went by, and Goldie just waved and waved back at them grandly, like she was royalty.

Every time the steam whistle blew, she laughed and laughed and laughed, and she loved the wind blowing through her hair (fuzz). She seemed to think everything had been arranged specifically for her personal enjoyment. It was so cute!

We just loved watching the steam drift up over the beautiful green forests. Oregon is such a great place!

Steam Locomotives

Steam locomotives are what we think of when we think of trains! So many people love them, and now we do too! You can learn SO MANY things about steam locomotives and steam engines, so we'll just include a few of our favorite resources.

First, a concise explanation of how they work.

An animation of a steam engine. (You can browse this page for other types of animated engines as well---my boys spent hours looking over the animations!)

We really liked this movie, The Golden Age of Steam Trains. You can just start watching at that link and follow links on the sidebar to each successive part, or find them here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

We made these folded paper steam locomotives.

This looks like a really fun project to build your own steam engine

This link is to the Peter's Railway site where there are some useful pictures and charts showing how steam locomotives work. I have a lot to say about Peter's Railway and I guess this is as good as any place to say it. In short,  WE LOVE IT! We ran into this site and through it, learned about the Peter's Railway books. I was intrigued by the format and ordered some so we could read them. They are wonderful! We love the stories, the pictures, and most especially the technical explanations. They are detailed enough for even my technical-diagram-loving children, yet clear enough to easily understand. They explain things we couldn't find explained in any of the many, many other train books we read. And the author, Chris Vine, is the nicest person you can imagine. We emailed him with some follow-up technical questions and he responded with a long, detailed answer that included links and pictures and friendly encouragement for the boys to get good at "maths" so they could enjoy physics and engineering to the fullest. :) The boys now just adore Mr. Vine and play "Bongo" and "Fiery Fox" (those are the names of Mr. Vine's miniature steam engine and the engine in the PR books) all day long.

There are some other fun videos on the Peter's Railway site, too, but we are especially glad we found the books. We have already read them over and over, and we are saving up to order the other books as well. We hope Mr. Vine writes more books soon!