This past Saturday, we had an exciting event happen in Rural Retreat. Well, exciting for US. I got an email from the Rural Retreat Train Depot Foundation (Shannon and I are on the renovation board) that stated: "The excursion train will operate from Bristol, VA to Radford, VA and return, bringing out the glories of the season through the rolling Southwest Virginia hills while celebrating the grand return of 21st Century Steam with historic Southern Railway steam locomotive #630 from the Tennessee Valley Railway Museum in Chattanooga. We expect the train to pass by the Rural Retreat Depot headed east between 10 and 11 AM, and to come back by headed west between 4 and 5 PM. ALL TIMES ARE ESTIMATES." Well, we HAD to go down and see this real steam engine. Pyper was soooo excited (even though she doesn't show it in the pics!)
Above tot he left is O. Winston Link's "Pelican at Rural Retreat" December 24, 1957 This print hangs in the Library of Congress. The pic to the right was taken on Saturday...
I love this depot. We are hoping it will be renovated to it's former glory one day....
Pyper refused to look at the camera...
"HERE IT COMES!!!" Pyper screamed.
It was sooo loud, but exciting! We had put pennies on the rails to have a memento...
We sang, "Little Red Caboose," a cute song I learned in Kindergarten in Mrs. Riddle's class as we would line up to walk anywhere...
Sara and her kids got there a little bit late to see the train, but they heard it from their house. It was a great day.
What great photos! How did the pennies turn out?
ReplyDeleteThe pennies were flattened and shiny! We put 8 down but could only find 2.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! I love the old train station!
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