The Alaska Railroad Easter Train

What does a train have to do with the Easter Bunny?

Instead of "…hippity hopping down the bunny trail," on Saturday, April 7th, the Easter Bunny hopped onboard the Alaska Railroad’s Easter Train and went "clickity-clacking" down the rails to Girdwood, and back.

We found an advertisement in the weekend local newspaper about the Easter Train. Since we enjoy train rides, we decided that for $65 each, we would enjoy the fun trip for all "kids" from the ages of 1 to 101. The train was sold-out five days before the Saturday event.

The train consisted of seven blue doomed cars with a blue and gold engine on each end. Since there is no turn-around on the railroad at Girdwood, one engine pulled the train down, and the other engine pulled the train back to Anchorage.

The Easter Bunny and crew, along with hundreds of children, parents and grandparents, boarded the Easter Train at the depot in Anchorage. While boarding the train, each person was given an Easter basket with a lunch of sandwich, chips, cookies and trail-mix pack. Bottles of water and juice were waiting on each table.

Onboard the train, the Easter Bunny roamed from car to car, greeting and getting pictures made with the children. The railroad crew gave out Easter bags with a stuffed animal, candy and plastic eggs inside. There were craft projects of paper eggs tied onto a paper-bar. Pictures for coloring and crayons were passed around. Prizes were given for the best picture colored in different age groups.

We shared a booth with two young girls, Amanda age 7 and Sidney age 9. Their parents and brothers, Luke age 3 and Shawn age 6, were across the aisle. The girls showed all their bag’s contents to us, and named their stuffed animals. Sidney won the prize for the best colored picture in her age group. Raffle prizes were given out to the adults on the trip back to Anchorage.

Everyone stayed on the train for half an hour at Girdwood as there is no "station" or place to get off. The sun was shining when we left Anchorage and it began to rain as we approached Girdwood. The sun was shining again as we returned to Anchorage.

For four and a half hours, on the Day before Easter, everyone had a great time.