It’s vacation time. Every year we attend the Rocky Mountain Nationals IHRA race in Edmonton, then go off somewhere for some real R&R. This year, the significant other suggested Saskatoon because, as always putting my interests ahead of hers, there’s a train museum there. So, Monday morning we drive to Saskatoon with plans of visiting said museum on Tuesday. Then, we find out the museum is open Thursday through Monday. Alas, the best laid plans etc.
Anything similar happen to you?
Sorry to hear of your dilemma.
However, I always check a website, hunt up a phone number to call or do something like that to be sure a place is open and operating before I go someplace over an hour away.
I also like to know during which hours they are open, as construction delays or such can impede assumed arrival times.
I also always assume a place will be closed when I want to go until proven otherwise. (Thursdays through Saturdays 9-5 always seem at least to be a proven bet to be open).
That way I seem to avoid disappointments.
Hope you get there again when they are open! [;)]
Sorry for your disappointment.
Yes I had the same thing happen to me in Revelstoke, BC, at the Revelstoke Railway Museum. We drove there from Kelowna in December but found when we arrived that they were closed Wednesday and Thursday during the winter months. Luckily the Revelstoke Aquatic Center was open. It was awesome although not rail related. [sigh] So… I learned the hard way to make inquiry’s before making any concrete plans. The Saskatchewan Railway Museum website advises contacting them for their hours of operation.
If you have the chance you might want to check out the Western Development Museum. I have only visited the location in Moose Jaw so I can’t comment on the others but that location is definately worth visiting.
I hope your trip wasn’t a total wash because of the frustration over the museum being closed. [:)]
I recall Michael Palin doing a story on the line to Kyle of Lochalsh in western Scotland that BR ran steam powered excursion trains on during the summer. Each day the train arrived just as the little depot’s gift shop closed for lunch hour, and left again just as the shop opened back up. It was the only train “served” by the depot each day. [oops]
Not exactly the same thing, but I recall back when I was a three-railer as a teen being on vacation with my folks out in Victoria British Columbia. We went for breakfast before getting on an overnight ship going up to Prince Rupert B.C. After breakfast I stopped by a hobby shop next to the restaurant and they had something in their window that I had been looking for - and at a great price…however they didn’t open until like 9 a.m. and this was 8:30 a.m… Someone was in the store but we couldn’t get them to open up, so we had to leave - only to find the boat delayed, and we ended up sitting in a big parking lot for three hours waiting to board. [banghead]
Been there done that! And everytime I do, I swear to myself that the next time I will check to find out the schedule/hour of operation of the place we are planning to visit.
An oath often forgotten by the time the next vacation or road trip comes around![(-D]
-George
I definitely call ahead on those trips.
On an off topic side note…Did the IHRA limit their nitro cars to 1000’ like the NHRA just did after Scott Kalittas death? I was shocked to tune into the Mile High Nationals Sunday and see them not running a full quarter mile anymore.[:O][:(]
In 2005 the wife, kids (ages 1 and 6) and I flew from our home in Atlanta, GA to the wife’s parents in Lubbock, TX which is waaaaaaaay ap in the Texas panhandle. We were there for a week. On our last day there, a Monday, the parents took us and the kids for a surprise visit to the train museum in Clovis, a 2 hour drive away. Sure enough, it was not open on Mondays. Surprise! Funny thing is we could have gone any one of the previous six days we were there! Oh well, at least the Clovis Dairy Queen was pretty good [:)]
Jamie
Hi Pasadena Sub,
I notice you are modeling the Clinchfield Railroad. The other day History Channel’s progam on Hillbillies spent a significant time discussing and picturing the Clinchfield and its construction. It mentioned many tunnels, bridges, and construction worker deaths. Veeerrrrry interesting!
Oh, back to the topic. We’ve all done it. My most memorable experience (not railroad related, however) was the one day, a Monday, we had in Puerto Rico. We planned to visit the telescope and a couple of wilderness parks in the hinterlands. They were all closed that day, as normal as we found out when we got to their entrances. I did have the adventure, however, of driving on a curving, steep, mountain road under a horrific rain storm. The road turned into a small river, and it was more like being on a too exciting log ride at an amusement park rather than a simple drive in the country.
Mark
Happens every time we are hunting for a new sushi restaurant for my wife in a new city or an unfamiliar area. She has the addresses of several places to check out, but seems like every time we finally track one down, they’re closed the day of the week we happen to be there, or they’re not open for lunch, or some other such thing. Then it’s off to the next place on the list. We usually go through this about 3 or 4 times before we finally find a place that’s open, or we just give up.
The worst is when we finally get to a restaurant and they’re all closed up, but after checking the hours of operation on the door, they should be open at that time. But they’re not - the place is shut up tighter than a snare drum, no note on the door or anything. It’s like it was a slow day or something, so the owner just closed up shop and went home. It’s a pure mystery, and it happens more frequently than you might think.
You’d think we’d learned our lesson by now and call ahead first… but then that takes the fun out of it! [;)]
"I went down the street to the 24-hour Hobby Shop. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, ‘Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.’ He said, ‘Yes, but not in a row.’ "
My apologies to Steven Wright.
Chevy Chase found Wally World closed - so he broke in - very funny but not train related!![:D]
I can’t believe I forgot about this one…and it is not only railroad related, it is model railroad related. About 15 years ago I was living in Columbia, SC. After purchasing a Model Railroader magazine one Saturday, a buddy of mine and I decided on a whim to go check out the three hobby shops listed in the back of MR in Asheville, NC. Much to the wives’ dismay, we all piled in the car and took off on the three hour tour. A three hour tour! Upon arrival, we discovered that the first two shops were long gone (out of business or moved), and by the time we got to the third, it had closed for the day. To this day I STILL hear about “the Aseville trip.” Jamie
No, IHRA is still running the full 1/4 mile. Unfortunately Dale Creasy Jr. had a transmission failure that sent some shrapnel into the car that mangled his leg pretty good. Not the result of a short track through. He got the car stopped on the track after the failure.
Yup. Last fall we went for a drive in the country and ended up at a small town that had a railroad museum and a small historical museum. We got there the day after Labour Day. They both closed for the year on Labour Day. Well, maybe this year. BTW, the only restaurant in town was closed too. Oh well, it wasn’t a total waste of time. Got some good pix of a track crew tearing up the track on a branch line just outside of town.
2 words:
CALL AHEAD
…only way to be sure something will be open before you make the effort to go there, you can also get operating hours, prices and information of what is or is not operating the day in question. [;)]
Similar thing happened to me a couple weeks ago. We were in Hagerstown, MD (we live in WV) just spending sometime shopping and lunching, when I ask the boys (3 and 5) if they want to go to The Train Room (a nice shop in Hagerstown with a museum of sorts). Told them if they were good at lunch we’d see about picking up a new train. They were good, but when we got there the store was closed. THey weren’t too happy, so we’ve got an outstanding promise to go back one weekend.
Happened to me last weekend, as a matter of fact.
We went up to Denton to visit my grandmother, and had some time to kill. I’ve been wanting to check out Silver Spike Hobbies up there for several years, but each time I get up there, I either don’t have time, or the store is closed. Sure enough, they’re closed until the 21st, presumably for the national train show.
Oh, well. Someday. [:)]
Yes. I had family things to do with the g/f on the same day that there was a local train show. What do I love more? Frustrating decisions…
I think it’s obvious what I did here (skipped the train show). Now I have to wait till October for another show, and I don’t know what she’s got planned that day 