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Western Railway Museum offers special Pumpkin Festival Trains during October
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RIO VISTA - Each Saturday and Sunday from October 13 through 28, the Western Railway Museum will run special Pumpkin Festival Trains. Now in its 15th year, this old time harvest festival is a highlight of autumn and for many, a family tradition.

The Museum opens at 9:30 a.m. and the first electric express train leaves the Museum at 10 a.m., with departures every half-hour until 4 p.m. The ride on a historic life-sized electric train takes visitors back in time on a scenic five-mile trip to Gum Grove Station, a wooded glen far from the trappings of modern life.

Local Rotary Club members from Fairfield-Suisun, Cordelia, and Dixon are rallying together to make the event a success, providing a hay bale fort, food, tractor rides, music, games and of course, pumpkins for sale, just in time for Halloween.

Admission to the Museum during the Pumpkin Festival is $12 for adults, $11 for seniors (65 and up), and $9 for children (ages 2 -14). Prices include admission to the Museum and to the Pumpkin Festival, unlimited train rides, use of the Museum’s spacious and shaded picnic grounds, and free parking. Please note that there are no advance reservations.

All proceeds benefit the Western Railway Museum (a nonprofit educational institution) and the local Rotary Clubs who provide thousands of dollars to local communities and youth activities each year.

The Museum is open Saturdays and Sundays all year long, and expands its hours in the summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day) to Wednesdays through Sundays. Every day the Museum is open, visitors ride authentic historic electric trains on an 11-mile round trip ride. The trip starts at the Western Railway Museum on rural Highway 12 in Solano County, originally known as Rio Vista Junction.

With the new extension, the train ride now ends near Birds Landing Road, and the Museum has built a boarding platform that looks out on the Suisun Marsh. Also visible are Suisun Bay, Mount Diablo, Mount Vaca, 50 modern wind turbines, the cities of Pittsburg and Benicia, and even Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, some 40 miles away.

For more information, visit www.wrm.org or call (707) 374-2978.