The Columbia Star Dinner Train

Friday July 15, 2011 ~ Tonight was the first night for the Columbia Star Dinner Train! We have been waiting month's for this new adventure to get here and didn't want to miss the first opportunity to be a part of the madien voyage!

Our evening started at the Colt Railroad at 6501 N Brown Station Road just behind Catfish Corner and it was great to see a wonderful turnout of guests.

It was fun to visit with others about attending and once you made it to the enterance you were greeted by wonderful staff who gave you your boarding passes and welcomed you aboard.

We were surprised to see Mark & Lori (some of our Grumpy's friends) celebrating their 11th Anniversary!

They were having dinner with some more of our Grumpy's friends, Gene & Annabelle! How fun!

We found our way to the first train car (113 a&b) and found our seat! This evening they only had 2 train cars with people with 150+ people in attendance! (Normal operation would be 224 guests not including the additional car that would come that would be handicap accessable)

Brandon and I!

My momma and I!

It was a fun evening that my momma, hubby and I got to share together! We have flown, rode in a car, and now rode a train together!

It was so fun to see all the people along the way waving at all of us! They would pull over on the side of the road just to let their kids wave. It was really cool!

They served an appetizer first (sorry I forgot to take a picture!) which was a cheese bread with little bit of onion, dried tomatoes (little) and pepperoni (I think). They they brought a bread basket and cute dishes of butter, sour cream and horseradish (for the prime rib).

Next up was the shrimp cocktail (this was additional if you wanted it) and since I don't eat seafood (many of you know I don't eat anything that stays in the water longer than I take a shower) Brandon and momma said it was really good.

More people enjoying the train going by!

Howdy y'all!

These people were having a great time and when we came back through they were still there having a good time!

Although the scenery was mostly woods the experience was really cool. To do something different than the "normal" is always fun! I wanted to catch the beautiful sunset but it went down before we got to a clearing so I got this one. Very pretty sky!

Dinner is served! The prime rib was so good! It was melt in your mouth good! Brandon had his done medium and mine was medium well and it was perfect! Fork tender! The horseradish was excellent too!

More people waving and checking out the train!

They had some romatic lighting to add to the experience too! There was one wedding proposal on the train, several anniversaries, a young man who it was his 88th birthday and he had retired from the railroad, and several birthdays and one man dressed in uniform.

Picture from our train car.

I found our very own Kat Cunningham who was on board with her hubby and sons! (One of her son's was helping on our train car)

The final piece to the trip.... dessert! This cake was so moist and had a pudding style center that was so good! Our overall experience was great! The food was excellent, the service was excellent, (Amando took great care of us) and being on a train that was so old and a part of history was really cool! When you make reservations you are required to pay in advance but honestly I liked that. Your beverages (we had sweet tea) was not part of the meal and the tip was not included when they charged your credit card when you made reservations but the personal service that the men and women gave to everyone was top notch! Tonight was just the madien voyage... I know it will get better and it is something I think you should give a try at least once. I respect the people representing the handicap community for being there to voice their opinion. I believe that the Columbia Star Dinner Train is and will do everything in their power to get appropriate accomodations allowing everyone that wants to be a part of the dinner train to do so.  I hear what they are saying and it's not being ignored and they even said last night on the train as we were coming back that they hope that in the near future they will have accomations for handicap to make it accessable. Hang in there guys and gals.... tonight was the first trip of many. :)