Dale S.
Yelp
The only reason I'm giving this two stars is that it was pet friendly and they even gave a cute little complimentary ticket to my dog. I think that was the only time I smiled during our trip here.
If you absolutely love trains, then you are probably one of the people who gave this a high rating and you might very well enjoy this railway. I like trains, and this is the third I have ridden in the last month but this is the only one that has been a disappointment.
We drove a little over an hour one way to come down here on the suggestion of a stranger we met in Scranton at the train yard. He was also traveling with his dog and said this was a must do.
I think it's awesome that they allow dogs and I definitely saw a lot of people with their pups. Unfortunately for me personally, that's where the joy ended.
We arrived early and purchased the "Crown Class" or first class seats. Afterwards, as we were looking on the electronic display, we realized they sell about 700 tickets per train ride, so you really don't have to come early to ensure that you get tickets. Some people weren't arriving 15 minutes before departure to purchase theirs . What you do have to come early for is parking.
The parking is terrible here. We witnessed a hit and run. We witnessed a woman screaming at one of the parking attendants. And, as we were leaving, because the lot was full, a woman stopped traffic to let us pull out and then tried to pull into the parking area the wrong way. The price is not unreasonable at $8 flat fee for the whole day, but they do charge you a processing fee if you pay from your phone like we did, instead of feeding dollar bills into the little machine.
We walked around the town while we were waiting, but that was pretty disappointing for us too. Not much was open and there was not a lot for us to do. We returned to the train station to wait and the fumes can get pretty bad. When we did board, the car was packed, and after we sat down, I realized that our seat was right by a heating vent. There were too many people for us to switch seats and I feel I should also say this was on a weekday morning. I was incredibly warm during the first half and for some reason cold air started coming in through the vent for the second half so I had to put my jacket back on.
The entire ride was just really disappointing from start to finish. First of all, the car was full and loud and when the guide came over the speaker, we couldn't hear a word he was saying. Then some of the elderly people on the car started getting upset and yelling that they couldn't hear him which made it even worse. Once people quieted down and we were on the way I could hear a word or two now and then, but the gentleman that was narrating the tour was so incredibly monotone and sounded so bored. It was terrible. The conductor in our car did try to point out other things and be more lively towards the end but it was just too little too late.
The train goes for about 20 minutes, stops, and then goes backwards the exact same way. So you have 20 minutes of views that just actually aren't very good. There's really nothing to see. We went in the fall and the foliage was nice but we saw better foliage on the drive there than we did on the train.
It was a really disappointing experience and we definitely would not do it again. We have even changed our plans for our visit to New Hampshire so as to not go to another train we were planning on visiting that sounds eerily similar to this one. I cannot recommend it at all, but I hope if you do choose to come here you have a better time than we did.