(The following appeared on the Toledo Blade website on May 1, 2011.)
TOLEDO, Ohio — National Train Day arrived Saturday, a week ahead of schedule, with a big show at the Toledo Amtrak Station at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Plaza, near downtown.
The station’s ground floor and third floor were filled with all manner of displays relating to railroads, including elaborate model trains. Outside on the tracks was a Norfolk Southern freight locomotive that had plenty of sightseers, but the real attraction was an Amtrak passenger train with a two-hour line of people waiting for a tour.
Mike Pauly, an Amtrak conductor, said the cars and engine had just been refurbished and were in mint condition. The lounge car and sleeping car were popular enough, but the locomotive was a bigger draw, with people climbing the stairs to the cab and snapping photos of each other beside it.
Jake Hall, 8, of Sylvania Township found the passenger train “very cool.” He was there with his father, John, and said he hoped to take an overnight train trip some day.
The Amtrak train was the reason National Train Day was observed early in Toledo, said Rob Greenlese of the Northwest Ohio Passenger Rail Association, whose group was one of the day’s organizers. The train was unavailable for the show next Saturday, the official date of train day.
Full story: Toledo Blade