The Wilmington and Western Railroad is a unique family outing. They are even wheel chair accessible with a lift available to get passengers to the platform. This railroad has been in use since the 1850s, although it used to be a much longer rail line, the rail ride today is about 10 miles long. The track go along beautiful areas, where you will see historical areas of old mills. Also along the tracks are several water crossings, with painting like scenes. Luckily the train doesn’t move too fast, so pictures turn out really nice. Check out some of our photos on our instagram here.
The railroad has many special event rides throughout the year including a Halloween ride and autumn leaf special in the fall. They also have a holiday lights express that runs at night where you get to see the decorations on the back of peoples homes. Another neat holiday ride is the Santa Claus express, where you can ride the train with Santa! Tickets for the different rides can be found here.
This year we choose to check out the Autumn leaf special to Mt.Cuba. The experience started out with boarding the train at Green Bank Station. You pick up your ticket inside the station. This station also has a gift shop, snack options, as well as bathrooms. Once we had our tickets, we boarded the train and located our assigned seats. The seats always face forward, which is helpful if you have motion sickness.
The train ran for about 35 mins. where they explained some of the history of the area and the train. Half way into the voyage we had the option to get off at private picnic area, and have lunch next to a creek or you could remain on the train while they turned it around. We opted for a picnic lunch, which we brought chicken salad and crackers. The lunch location was beautiful and I would definitely recommend getting off and enjoying the views. Then we got back on the train and headed back to the station.
The Wilmington and Western railroad is volunteer based. So if you are railroad enthusiast, they have many opportunities to help the railroad continue to run from restoring the rail cars to being a conductor. The railroad and surrounding area has such a rich history, it is definitely worth the trip. I was pleasantly surprised on how beautiful the ride was and I will be taking another trip in the future to check out the holiday light! Tag us on instagram @whereiswhereindelaware, so we can see your adventures as well!
Looking for other fun thing to do? Check out more from the blog here.