The Tri-Rail

This past Saturday The Family made plans to take Colin (our son) on his first train ride…the TRI-RAIL. Now, Colin has rode the steam engine at Disney, the monorails, and even visited a few train stations but this was the first official BIG (as we would say around the house) train ride.

So, it’s Saturday morning and we are on our way to the Train Station in North West Palm Beach were our plans were to board the tri-rail and travel south to Miami for lunch. We arrived 30 minutes early, paid for our tickets and then anxiously awaited those all famous words “All Aboard”. This is where the journey got really interesting…five minutes before the all aboard call my wife read the sign that said this train heading south to city of West Palm had been cancelled! Apparently, there was a body on the track and the local authorities were in route. So, they had buses routed in to take us 20 minutes south to the next station.

The bus ride was great except the driver took us to the wrong station. Once he realized what he had done…he quickly re-routed us to the right station where the train was waiting for us. We boarded the train and quickly moved to the second floor where we found 4 seats and settled in for the next hour and forty minute trip to Miami.

After we unloaded Miami we headed to the transit system for a trip to Bayside for lunch. We had to go through a terminal that required you to validate your ticket to pass through. Once I put my ticket in nothing came out…in other words it got stuck. For the next 20 minutes I waited for a tec to show up to get my ticket out of the machine only to find out there was no one even on duty. So, I ended up buying another ticket. They did inform me that I could write a letter to the company asking for a refund. The tickets are only $4.

Once through we boarded the Metrorail. I have to be honest we knew were we wanted to go but had no idea how to get there. After asking several locals we learned that we needed to get off at the Government station stop and board the metro mover which would take us downtown to Bayside.

When we boarded the metro mover I quickly noticed that there was no one driving! This subway type cart was operated by some person in a hub in another part of the city. They had cameras that watched to make sure that everyone had loaded safely then they closed the doors and away you go. It was a little weird but really fast and fun.

Once we got to Bayside we walked around checked out the cruise ships then went to lunch at Bubba Gump’s. The food was fantastic! The atmosphere was great! And the service was excellent! We even got to see the original shoes that Forrest Gump wore in the move.
After we finished we loaded the metro mover, then the metrorail which landed us safely back at the Tri-Rail train station where we were taking the train back to West Palm.

Our trip back was very entertaining to say the least. There was a gentleman in the seat in front of me that felt the need to share very loudly his political agenda and his position on life. His talk lasted about 20 minutes and then he was gone.

We arrived in West Palm around 8:15…we originally expected to back in Sebastian by 3:00. We loaded the car and ended our son’s adventuress first BIG train ride. What started out to be a 4-6 Hours experience turned out to be almost 13 hours.

Pastor Joe