This past Saturday, 28th September, we attended the #RailOpenDay at the Northern Line Facilities, in Southampto, find more here. This is part of the rail week events, which are happening all around the UK. We have to stress how our kidos that are absolutely crazy about trais, so this event was impossible for us to miss. This was actually my partner's idea, he was the one who stumbled upon on the advert for the open day, and signed all of us to attend. This was a brilliant idea really, as both kids absolutely loved it!
I had no idea that the open day would be offering so many activities. We arrived around 14h30, and we stayed there for hours! During the whole afternoon, we were walking around trains, learning more about them, and I have also to say that the staff that was working the Open Day was absolutely friendly and lovely...
One of the activities that we could do was having our names featuring on the trains:
No my name is not there, but as you can see Patricia had her name featuring on the destination for a few minutes! We had our kids name there, as well and they had a laugh when saw it and realised that it was their name showing on the train! "Its my name there", they were screeching with delight, pointing at their name!
The event obiously was all about trains, so there were trains all around and it was impressive to actually see the trains weals up and close! They are massive. However, a key thing is the actual surface of the wheel that touches the train line in the size of a 50p coin... Curious! I had no idea...
We also had the chance to learn more about the innovations that are happening on the locomotives to become more eco-friendly. Siemens is attempting to de-carbonize rail, hence the creation of 'Hydrogen Hero'. There was a small locomotive that the kids could ride on. Unfortunately when our turn arrived they had run out of Hydrogen so we couldn't try it... Maybe next year!
We also had the opportunity to walk under the train, and we where able to see up and close the ins and outs of the train...
Actually, I didn't went under the train, as we had to bring the buggy with with us, so I was the one that volunteered to keep and eye on the buggy. Dad and kids did go, and learned a lot about the train's mechanics!
We Love trains! Even when walking around, under, in, all trains are brilliant, even in photos!
LEGO! This was one of the favorite stops for the kids.There was a small area that had Lego trains, a small lego train line that being used as a prop for for reading measurements of both vibration and the noise caused by trains. The kids did not care much about the readings, just the trains really, though mummy was interested in the different measurements!
The marquee outside was offering a lot of kids friendly activities as well, as face painting and my kids favorite: wood train sets. This was their favorite activity and where in the end we stayed for a very long time, the final stop of our #RailOpenDay!
Overall we had a brilliant time. The suggestion that I would make for the organisers though, is to make these events more mobility friendly. We are still using a buggy for our youngest as I mentioned earlier. He is pretty active, however he still gets tired and very now and then he still asks for a nap after lunch, and the buggy is pretty handy for this. The paths that we were using in this event were not spacious enough for a buggy to pass whilst other people were walking in the opposite direction. I had to stop several times to let people pass by me and the buggy. A nice alternative would be the offering a spot for the buggies to be parked by the organizers... !We would then be able to do many of the activities together instead of having one of us volunteering to keep an eye on the buggy too... Another point is, if walking with a buggy was pretty difficult for me to do, I won't even imagine how people with mobility issues could circulate easily this event. Otherwise, we really had a brilliant day! Thank you for this #RailOpenDay! We will do the event next year if possible!
What about you? How was your Saturday?
