Over the weekend, we took the kids to “Day Out With Thomas” at the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, IL. For two weekends every year, they feature a full size working replica of Thomas the Tank Engine that people can ride!
Sammy loved seeing all the trains at the museum, especially all the Thomas and Friends merchandise. His eyes got really wide in the huge tent that served as the store for all things Thomas. They had train whistles, conductor’s hats, trains of all shapes and sizes, Thomas placemats, Thomas lunchboxes, Thomas plush toys, and almost anything you could think of to put a Thomas logo on!
We will definitely go back again next year. Here’s a few things we’ll try to keep in mind until then:
- Pre-order your tickets online! When we first looked at the IRM Thomas page, we couldn’t find any place to reserve the tickets. There is some way to do it, since we saw a whole box of Will Call tickets waiting to be picked up. By the time we arrived at 9:30 am, all Thomas train tickets were sold out until the 3:00 pm show! Luckily, Sammy was able to hold out all day without a nap. We were even able to look at more trains after our Thomas ride. Update: Tickets can be purchased online here.
- Pack a picnic lunch and plenty of cold drinks. The food and drinks were very expensive, and not all that great. They were charging $1.50 for a bottle of water! There were plenty of benches and picnic tables and lots of nice grassy areas for picnic blankets. There is limited shade and only a few indoor seating areas. We found three air conditioned spots: the Nursing Mothers area, the First Aid area, and a Burlington passenger train that was being restored in one of the back lots (behind the Thomas boarding area near Barn 9).
- When boarding the Thomas the Tank Engine train, make sure you get to the boarding area 30-60 minutes in advance to get the choice seats! The best seat on the train is on the boarding side of one of the last three cars. This was recommended by one of the volunteers there. This ensures a good view of Thomas as he pulls the rest of the train around a bend. If you weren’t fast enough with your camera the first time around, the train backs up and takes the reverse route back to the station. The ride lasts about 25 minutes, a perfect length for fidgety Thomas fans. Our car had a clown aboard to entertain the children, and volunteers gave each child a Jr. Engineer Certificate signed by Sir Topham Hatt!
The Day Out With Thomas Ticket price was $16.00 each. Children under two were free, so we didn’t have to pay for Sophie. A Day Out With Thomas ticket included one train ride with Thomas the Tank Engine, unlimited rides on all other trains and streetcars; all entertainment (meeting Sir Topham Hatt, puppet shows, live music, magic shows, etc.), and access to all Museum exhibits for the day. The free parking lot opened at 7:30am and the gates opened at 9:00 am.
Regular admission to the museum on non-Thomas days is $10.00/person, but a volunteer told us that if you bring back a Thomas ticket stub before the season ends in October, you’ll get $1.00 off admission for each member of your family. The Illinois Railway Museum is the largest railway museum in the country, so I’m sure Sammy would love to go back and explore all the full size and model trains that we missed the first time around.
We took many photos, over 200! Be sure to check out the best ones on our Flickr photo set. We even uploaded a few videos of Thomas pulling out of the station on our YouTube page.
This is an event which shouldn’t be missed by any Thomas the Tank Engine fans. Thomas is still travelling around the country. If you are in another part of the country, he may be stopping by your city this weekend! Be sure to check out the TicketWeb site to see which city is his next stop.
Here are some quick stats of our day with Thomas:
- Hours waited before riding Thomas: 5.5
- Toddler meltdowns witnessed: 14
- Grandparents seen giving a Listerine strip as a way to calm their screaming grandson: 1
- Sammy meltdowns: 0
- Corndogs consumed: 4
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I am glad you had such a great time at the IRM. I have been a volunteer there for over six years now and also enjoy our DOT. Great pictures, and we hope to see you again next year.
Tim Both
Volunteer, IRM.
Thanks so much, Tim. We really appreciate all the work that you volunteers do at the IRM. Harold, the voice of Thomas, was the one who gave us all the great tips mentioned in the article. We can’t wait ’til Thomas comes back around next summer!