Friday, September 13, 2013

Three cheers for the Rockville Metro station master

I like to get out of the house at least once a week with Zoltan, as it is just too hard to focus on him vs. all the chores when we're home. So today he asked to go to a museum on the train. Sorry hon, all those books you wanted me to read cut into our travel time. How about we go watch the trains?

Unfortunately, between the walls and trees, there are no good outdoor vantage points to see the metro trains as they go by.  I have been wondering what it would cost to go into the metro and back out at the same stop anyway, so I asked the station master. For anyone who's wondering, it's $1.70 (or $1.75, I forget, but it's close enough). I explained that my son just likes to watch the trains go by.

He let us in for free. He even suggested we could hop on a train, go a few stops and turn around to come back. He told me how long he'd be at the station so we could just go back out through him. First, we had a snack on the platform while watching trains come and go. Then we hopped a train and went three stops (the last outdoor stop, I think) and sat there watching trains for a bit. Finally, we crossed the platform and went home.

Was it worth $1.70? Absolutely! But how much sweeter to meet a man with sympathy for a boy who loves trains?

Bonus: As we started walking home, a freight train came by on the other track so we got to watch it too. It probably had 20 or more cars.

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