Embracing Chaos: Southeastern Railway Museum

Ollie in the engineer's chair

Two weekends ago we visited the Southeastern Railway Museum. Mike discovered this one day online and thought this would be the perfect place to take the kids. It is a large train yard full of very old trains. Upon arrival, the kids were quite excited. Ollie remained excited the entire time, but Drew became scared of them very quickly once he realized how big a train is in person. They are large and overwhelming when standing next to one. He found the little gift shop with a train table much more exciting and fun. In fact, we had to bribe him to come out of the gift shop. I lured him out with the promise of him being able to come back and pick out a toy train to take home. We got to climb inside the cockpit of real steam locomotives, and enjoyed fruit snacks while sitting in the lookout tower of a real, red caboose.

Having a snack in the caboose

Drew and Ollie are very much in love with trains these days. We have a train set at home and have acquired a number of trains since summer. Every afternoon when we come home the boys play in the living room with their trains for about an hour. They each have their favorites and since visiting the railway museum they have each added to their own personal collection. With the help of Daddy, Ollie picked out a very expensive James (part of the Thomas collection); while Drew picked out a very cheap diesel engine train for a fraction of the price of James. I was thrilled at that. He has since named the train, Silly Blue. He fits our train track perfectly and he has become a welcomed addition.

These trains are a lot less intimidating

The kids also enjoyed a ride on a real diesel engine train while we were at the museum. They loved this part and were so cute while watching the engineer work his magic. I had wished it was a bit longer and faster, but the kids thoroughly enjoyed the experience regardless.