Rails to the Rim

We arrived at the Grand Canyon Railway RV Park www.thetrain.com in Williams last Sunday. On Monday morning our trip on the Grand Canyon Railway started with a Wild West Show at the Grand Canyon station.

The train left at 9.30 a.m. and headed off on the just over 2 hour trip to the Grand Canyon. On this railroad the steam train is only used a few times a year, usually it’s a diesel train.

Not long after the journey started, a fiddler played songs and danced up and down the carriage.

The scenery on this route is mostly through the flat plateau, in places there are still the remains of old train stops.

Grand Canyon station is more or less in its original condition.

The train leaves for its return journey to Williams at 3.30 p.m. promptly, so we had just over 3 hours at the canyon, they don't hang around so if you miss the train it's either a $145.00 cab ride or a very long walk!

We had decided to walk to the observation point but as we were walking along the trail, we could see a storm blowing up out of nowhere, so we ducked into the visitor centre, just in time. The lightening flashed, the thunder rolled and the rain poured, it only lasted about a half hour but it was spectacular to watch.

Once the storm was over everywhere smelt fresh and clean. We stayed for the ranger talk and watched another storm building on the north rim.

Navajo Dancers perform outside Hopi House most days they were very good we watched them

before sitting on the wall just admiring the view.

On the return journey there was an accordion/harmonica player who walked up and down the carriage. He was selling small harmonicas for $5.00 each some of the kids bought them, bet the parents loved that!

Just outside of Williams there was a hold up, train robbers on horseback (not Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, ah well!) forced the train to stop. The Sherriff wasn’t far behind them.

We arrived back in Williams around 5.30 p.m. we had a great day out.

Have fun, we are!