Osceola and St Croix Valley Railway - Marine on St. Croix

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When:

Saturday, June 21, 2014 - 11:00am - 12:30pm

Where:

Who: This is for the entire family! Bring along grandma and grandpa, too, and don't forget your aunts, uncles, cousins, your good friends, and the neighbors!
Fun for all ages.

How much:
Cost for Adult/s and Child/ren ages 16 and up: $8.00
Cost for Child/ren ages 2 through 15 years: $8.00
Cost for Child/ren under the age of 2: $0.00

Please register by: Monday, June 9, 2014 - 5:00pm

Description

For the first time in the history of the Osceola and St Croix Valley Railway, the start of their rail season must be delayed due to poor track conditions. Exactly how long it will take to repair the tracks is unknown as inspections are still underway, but it is believed it will be several weeks. With the advice of the Depot Manager, our Homeschool Adventure Marine on St. Croix round trip has been rescheduled from Sat, May 17 to Saturday, June 21 (still departing the depot at 11am).

Travel though the beautiful St. Croix River Valley in vintage railway equipment -- children are allowed and encouraged to explore the cars which usually includes a variety of coaches, a box car or two (with grates over the open doors), a mail car, and a caboose. Volunteer crew members are always happy to meet passengers and answer questions.

Ticket price is $8/person ages 2 and up and free for children under the age of 2. Everyone, including babes-in-arms, must have a ticket! Regular ticket prices are $18/adult and $8/child.)

We are scheduled for the 11am Regular Schedule to Marine on St. Croix, MN. Round trip train ride is 90 minutes in length. Ninety minutes may sound long, but the train trip is always done before we know it. It is one of my family's favorite things to do.

This is not a sit in the seat and watch the scenery go by ride (although you may do so if you wish). Families may be up, moving and exploring the entire length of the train. You'll want to travel from one end of the train and back again as each car is likely to be quite different from the next. Do not invest a lot of effort into selecting your initial seats when you board as you will spend very little time sitting in them! Put your picnic lunch and other belongings in the rack above — both so that you will not to be burdened with them but also so that others may have the pleasure of trying out the same seats — and explore! We may be boarded onto reserved coaches, but we will still have the run of the whole train once we are underway.

Exactly which cars will be part of the train is hard to predict as it will depend on what's in the shop for repair, refurbishment, or restoration, how many other trains are running at the same time as ours, and how many passengers are on the train. You can find a list of available cars at www.mtmuseum.org/?div=jsr&page=equipment. Click on the car name for its history and technical specifications — cars with the Osceola and St Croix Valley Railway button are currently in service.

You can expect to see:

• a variety of different dining cars — so that other families may enjoy the experience of dining-car dining, please clear your table in the dining cars when you have finished eating and move to coach seating. Food is permitted in the coach cars as well if you are unable to find an empty table in the dining car.
• a variety of different coach cars from different eras. We love to try out each one. Look for the Great Northern 1213 Streamlined Coach, a 60-seat coach designed for short-distance passengers with two restrooms/lounges and a small office for the conductor, this is one of the nicest streamlined cars in the museum's collection. There's also four additional Great Northern Streamlined Coaches, two Rock Island commuter coaches, and way too many more to list here.
• the windy open baggage doors of the Great Northern 265 Streamlined Baggage/Express Storage-Mail Car (There are grates over the open doors, so your children won't fall out, but crew members will ask your children to not climb on or rattle those grates). This is also where you'll find the concessions stand (snack food and trinkets)
• the Northern Pacific 1102 Heavyweight Triple Combine - my favorite and a very typical branch line car from between the world wars which includes coach seating, a baggage compartment, and a small railway post office which has been restored to look like it did in operation and is used for mail-catch demonstrations at 1pm (provided personnel are available) following our train trip — I strongly encourage you to stick around and watch the mail catch from the side of the track — buy a postcard before the trip and your own mail can be included in that bag.
• viewing platform at the back (or the front) of the Great Northern A-11 Streamlined Business Car (children may be allowed to sound the horn with the assistance of the conductor or other crew member)
• a variety of tiny bathrooms!
• nesting raptors on the bridge
• meet all the crew — conductor, trainman, brakeman, fireman, and even the engineer.
• the junctures between cars — however, the railway asks that you not pause at the junctures
• oftentimes the engine can be toured after the train trip and can usually be seen from the first car of the train during the ride

Map from Minneapolis to Osceola Depot:

Map from Osceola Depot to Osceola Landing

After the ride, please join us across the river at the Osceola Landing of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway for some fun in the sun. Bring along a picnic lunch or just come to enjoy the fresh air!

Event information Cancellation information Additional information Registration form 

Payment information

Payment must be received by: Mon, Jun 9, 2014 - 5:00pm

1. Immediately after you register, you will be sent an email confirmation and payment instructions from admin(at)homeschoolrecess(dot)com.

   Make sure your email filters recognize this address as a legitimate sender. If you don't receive this email, please check your spam, junk or bulk mail folder. Contact the organizer if you are unable to find it; if you receive no response to your email, please call the organizer. 
    

2. Please plan to send your payment the same day that you register.

   You are not officially registered until the organizer receives your payment. 

   If you are unable to send payment immediately, please contact the organizer to make other arrangements. This protects the organizer from non-payment due to payment instructions blocked by overly aggressive spam protection. To help the organizer identify you in the registration database, please forward your payment instructions to the organizer along with your request. 
   
   

3. When the organizer records your payment, you will be emailed a payment receipt from admin(at)homeschoolrecess(dot)com.

   The organizer updates payment records daily. If you've sent your payment and haven't received a payment confirmation, please contact the organizer by email or phone.
    

4. If the organizer doesn't receive payment within 4 days of your date of registration or by the payment deadline, whichever comes first, your family may be removed from the registration list.

   You will be notified with an email from admin(at)homeschoolrecess(dot)com should this unfortunate event occur.
    

5. If you need to cancel your registration, please do so via an email request to the organizer.

   Non-payment is not an acceptable way to cancel your registration.  

Event information Payment information Additional information Registration form 

Cancellation information

Cancellation deadline: Mon, Jun 9, 2014 - 5:00pm

TO CANCEL BEFORE THE DEADLINE: 
(1) Please let the organizer know as soon as possible via email. 

TO CANCEL AFTER THE DEADLINE: 
(1) Let the organizer know as soon as possible via email. 
(2) No refunds can be made as the organizer has already paid for your tickets. 
(3) To avoid empty seats, please attempt to transfer your tickets to another family by posting the availability to the HSAdventures Yahoo Group (and elsewhere as appropriate). 
(3a) Any reimbursements should be handled privately between you and your substitute. 
(3b) Please let the organizer know about the substitution. 
 
TO CANCEL ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT: 
(1) It is not cool to just not show up. Please let the organizer know if you are unable to attend — via email, text message or voice mail. 
(2) To avoid empty seats, please attempt to find a last-minute substitute for your family by posting to the HSAdventures Yahoo Group (as well as through any other other methods at your disposal). 

Event information Payment information Cancellation information Registration form 

Additional information

Please arrive by:

Please plan to arrive no later than 10:30am in order to have plenty of time to find parking, check in with the organizer, visit the bathrooms and otherwise prepare for our train to leave promptly at 11am. Boarding is scheduled to begin at or about 10:30am. 

Please plan to be early to avoid being late due to inadequate maps, confusing road signs, road construction, heavy traffic, parking difficulties, inclement weather or uncooperative children. There's stuff to do and see, wonderful people to meet, and beautiful weather to enjoy (at least, I'm hoping for beautiful weather). 

If you find that despite your best efforts, you are running unavoidably late, please let the me know! You may reach me by phone or email on the day of the event. 

If you arrive late but the train is still at the station, you may retrieve your tickets from the ticket office inside the Depot. If the train has left the station, you will be out of luck!

Where to meet:

As soon as you arrive, please retrieve your tickets, receipt and name badges from the organizer who will be standing by the picnic table on the east side of the depot wearing a bright yellow hat and a Homeschool Adventures button. (If it is raining or exceptionally cold or windy, the organizer may choose to stand inside the Depot in the lobby area ... not in the gift store.) 

Expect a conductor to pass through the train punching tickets!

Food policy:

You may bring a picnic lunch to enjoy on the train. I recommend that you bring at least a light snack to eat. You might not think your child(ren) will get hungry during a 90-minute ride, but eating on the train is part of the experience, and your child(ren) will want to join the others who are enjoying the dining cars.

There are a variety of snack foods for sale in the Streamlined Baggage/Express Storage-Mail Car along with an assortment of gift shop items.  

Please do take care to share the tables in the dining cars. If your family is not actively enjoying a meal, please stow your belongings in an overhead rack and explore the many other cars of the train (or at least relocate to a coach car). If you don't find seating in the first dining car you enter, please check the next one as the train usually includes several. Should there be no spaces for your family in any of the dining cars, eating is permitted in coach as well.

After the ride, please join us across the river at the Osceola Landing of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway for some fun in the sun. Bring along a picnic lunch or just come to enjoy the fresh air!  https://goo.gl/maps/wHzA3

Alternate plans:

The Minnesota Transportation Museum may choose to delay, re-route or even cancel the train ride due to severe weather or track conditions. Should that occur, any refunds or exchanges offered would be solely at the desecration of the Minnesota Transportation Museum. The volunteer organizer for this event cannot offer refunds after the cancellation deadline.

Parking information:

Free parking down the hill in the designation spots on Depot Rd. Please leave the limited number of spots in the small lot by the Depot for those with disabilities.

Directions:

GOOGLE MAP: http://bit.ly/oscvdepot
MAPQUEST MAP: http://tinyurl.com/2sgofs

DIRECTIONS: 
The Osceola & St. Croix Valley Railway's Osceola Depot is located at 114 Depot Rd in Osceola, Wisconsin, about a one-hour drive from the Twin Cities area. Take I-35E or I-35W north out of the Twin Cities. Take the first exit (Hwy. 97) after I-35W and I-35E merge and go east until you come to Hwy. 95. Travel north on Hwy. 95 about 5 miles to Hwy. 243 where you'll see a sign for Osceola. Turn right (east) and proceed across the St. Croix River into Wisconsin. Osceola is immediately east of the St. Croix River. Once in Osceola, you'll come to Wisconsin Hwy. 35. Turn right (south) and proceed under the railroad bridge, and immediately turn right again onto Depot Road. The Depot is one block ahead. You will find visitor parking spaces along Depot Road leading up to the depot.

Map from Minneapolis to Osceola Depot at https://goo.gl/maps/kmMJg

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