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Carolina Traveler | The little engine that did

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WINNSBORO, S.C. -- If you have never seen a steam locomotive up close, you need to remedy that. It’s a “bucket list” type thing. If you have them, bring your kids and grandkids, too. You have to see and feel one chugging and spitting its way along the tracks. And that whistle! Wow! When you hear the whistle on a steam engine, it takes you right back to every bedtime story your parents read you about a train.

It’s the steam locomotive that we imitate in those bedtime stories. Chug-uh Chug-uh toooooot-tooot! Even though diesel and electric trains have long since replaced steam locomotives, we don’t imitate them, do we? Nope. Only the steam engine lives in our imaginations. And only the steam engine is a living breathing thing.

You can see and smell its huffing puffing breath. You can watch sweat drip down its skin. You’ll swear it’s alive! I’ve been fortunate enough to have ridden a steam engine at all four of the locations I’ve listed below.

Watch this story on a recent ride we took on a steam locomotive the South Carolina Railroad Museum in Winnsboro brought in… and then check with the organizations I’ve listed for the next time one will be in your area.

South Carolina RR Museum, Winnsboro, SC, 803-635-9893 http://www.scrm.org/main.asp

North Carolina Transportation Museum, Spencer, NC, 877-628-6386 http://www.nctrans.org/

Great Smoky Mountain Railway, Bryson City, NC, 800-874-6281 http://www.gsmr.com

Tweetsie Railroad, Blowing Rock, NC, 800-526-5740 http://www.tweetsie.com/