My wife is a big kid at heart sometimes, Ok many times. I had not been to the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, California since I moved to Spokane in 1987 so I wanted to visit the museum. Then I found out that they were having Day out with Thomas day at OERM today so we bought some tickets so we can visit the museum and ride behind Thomas.

     The only tickets left available for was one of the first train trips of the day which was 8:00am so we had to get up early and head out of Anaheim at 6:00AM. We took California 57, to California 91, Interstate 15 to California 74. All were freeways except for California 74.

     One of the things I discovered on this trip since it was our longest trip on freeways so far is that the Pontiac Torrent likes to start wondering when it is above 70mph. Add a little wind and driving the thing can become difficult.

     We got off of Interstate 15 and took California 74 in LakeElsinore. It has been about 20 years since I have been here and it has changed with lots of suburban sprawl. In fact when I was here last, the Interstate was not even done. California 74 has also changed with all the development. While there were not many developments between LakeElsinore and Perris, the road had been expanded to four lanes from the rarely used 2 lane road I knew.

      Once we got to Perris we went looking for someplace for breakfast. One thing that has not changed in Perris is that there is not a lot to be had in the town but near Interstate 215 there was a Jack in the Box so we decided to eat there. We did not have a lot of time and wanted to get to the museum before it became too crowded but the service at Jack in the Box was really slow and the food not that great.

      Once we had our food we drove over to the museum and this area had changed a lot also. Instead of open fields near the museum there was a huge new High School across the street from the front entrance. In addition there has been some housing built along the museums right of way. You could just figure that someone in this housing is going to start complaining about all the noise that the trains make even though they only operate on weekends.

      I highly recommend the OrangeEmpireRailwayMuseum. They have done an excellent job of preserving the greatest transit system known to man the Pacific Electric plus the Los Angeles Railway streetcars and much more.

      After walking into the museum we still had a few minutes before we had to stand in line for our train ride. We went over to a table where they were selling raffle tickets so we bought a couple of those before heading over to the line to wait for our train which was another 30 minutes from now. I was really impressed as most people in the line were very courteous of the people around them except a couple of exceptions. When it got closer to our train time we were then led out to the platform to wait for the train return from its excursion.

      The train went by us, went to the end of the line, then came back to discharge the people on board before boarding us. The train was of course led by Thomas but a former Santa Fe FP45 passenger diesel was providing the real motive power muscle. We board our car which was a former Pacific Electric and Southern Pacific Bay area Blimp that served the Los Angeles to Long Beach line until the end of the line in 1961.

      The actual train ride lasted about 20-minutes. I had ridden trains on this section of track many times so it was not a big deal for me but this was my wife’s first trip to the museum and she really enjoyed it.

      Once the train trip was over there was so much to see. We went through the car barn were they keep the Los Angeles Railway cars,  then walked over to the narrow gauge area that is all new from my last time here. In this large barn they had not only the narrow gauge equipment that came from a former Disney employee but also had a store set up by the people from Thomas. The museum also has a loop streetcar which used the former Los Angeles Railway equipment and after having to wait for a couple of streetcars we found one with room and got on a rode around the loop.

     After riding the streetcar we went through some of the equipment that is kept outside plus two of the more remote car barns. Finally we went over to the gift store to look around. The store seemed to have less inventory that they used to but my wife bought a couple of things that I would later find out were my Christmas presents.

      We took a few pictures of the Thomas train before leaving the museum, heading through downtown and taking some pictures and getting on Interstate 215. This would actually be my first trip on I-215 south of Perris to Escondido ever. We drove to Murrieta were we stopped at an independent fast food place for lunch. After lunch we continued on our journey. We got off the Interstate to drive old US Highway 395 and passed the Welk Resort Area before coming into Escondido.

       In Escondido we stopped at the transit center hopefully to get some timetables for our trip to San DiegoWildAnimalPark but they the transit center had no schedule racks open to the public on the weekend. Because we could not get schedules we decided to not take the bus up here to the park on Monday. I also took some pictures of the future Sprinter Diesel Rail line that is scheduled to open in 2008.

       From here we started driving down to San Diego. We drove through San Diego and into Chula Vista. I kept thinking our motel was on H Street but as it turned out it was E Street so we had to drive back to the Good Nite Inn.  

       After checking in we got back into the car and started heading toward National City. We drove down Imperial Beach Blvd to Seacoast and then south to the end of the road. From here you can walk down to TijuanaRiver and look across to Mexico. However, the path was very rocky so we just stayed near the end of the road and took some pictures of the sunset.

       We then drove north staying close to the water as possible before heading back to the motel for the night.