Sunday night my wife and I along with my sister in law / brother in law and the mother in law loaded up and headed down to Batesville, Ms. (a 1 1/2 drive from North East Shelby county, TN. ) We had tickets for the 5:30 run of the Polar Express, curtsy of the Iowa Pacific Railroad. The train makes a 1 hour round trip down the old IC passenger main line.
The train arrives
After the train arrived and unloaded the passengers from the previous run things came to a standstill. The ticket tent turned into a mad house with parents and children waiting in line to pick up their tickets purchased on line months earlier.
Above, my wife and sister in law are almost at the ticket table after waiting in line for over and hour. When they reached the ticket table I joined them in time to hear the bad news. Our tickets were in one of the three " Diamond" level cars (3 double decker former Long Island RR commuter cars). These cars had experienced a generator failure and would not be able to take on passengers. We then were directed to the next tent in order re schedule, or receive a refund, which required a wait in another long line. This was indeed one of the saddest sites I have seen in many year. The three commuter cars demanded the most expensive fares and were sold out. the line of parents with small children (almost all in their PJ's) in tears was almost too much for me to endure with dry eyes. Many families had come up from the New Orleans area, and others had traveled up to 12 hours in order to let their kids experience the Polar Express story for real. Some families had hotel rooms in Batesville. One family had spent $1,100 on tickets. And to make things even worse for the children left behind, they had to watch the Polar Express leave with all of the kids on board waving.
Now I cannot blame the Iowa Pacific for the generator failure. Things go wrong on vintage trains all the time. However the folks in charge of the ticket operation should have directed riders with car A, B or C on their printed receipts to another area in order to pass on the sad news and re schedule their ride or refund. Instead, these riders stood in massive lines only to find out they would not be riding the Polar Express. It would have been nice if the operators of the event could have at least presented the children who were going to miss the ride with a hot chocolate cup and the "Bell" that they would have received on the train.
My wife read reviews of the trip on Face Book today. There were stories of luke worm hot chocolate and cheep cookies. Also the "North Pole was set up only on one side of the track. Passengers on the other side of the cars had a view of the "grave yard of the rusted automobile."
Here are a few other pictures.
A picture of the Polar Express on a building and the gift shop tent. The two ticket tents are on the far right. These pictures were taken earlier in the day before thee crowds arrived. If Batesville had a LHS, the owner could have sold many Polar Express sets, along with other Lionel Christmas items.
Here are the "Hot Chocolate servers"
The Hot Chocolate server above is outside of the ticket tend. Notice the crowed of passengers waiting to pick up their tickets.
Finally I had my wife take a picture of me in front on one of the E 8's or may 9's. The train was ran with two E units, one on each end of the train.
Thanks,
Richard
