After having to close the tracks for over a year and a half, Exploration Place is offering residents one chance to ride the “Little Prince” train for free at Lheidli T’enneh Memorial Park over the Thanksgiving Long Weekend.
“We are excited to have worked out a plan to offer free rides on the Little Prince all weekend, we’re only going to be doing rides between 11 am and 3 pm on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday,” said  Tracy Calogheros, CEO of the Exploration Place and the Fort George Railway.
Calogheros says normally the train runs all throughout the summer season, but it was impossible to operate while adhering to provincial protocols over the last year-and-a-half.
Historically, residents would line up outside the park for a chance to ride the train, but during this family-friendly event this weekend, ride times will be staggered to avoid any mass gathering in the park.
“The Prince is a 1912 original steam engine that built the Grand Trunk Pacific, it is appealing to people of absolutely all ages,” she explained.
To ride the train, everyone 5 and over must wear a mask, social distancing measures will be in place and the train will be sanitized between each ride.
“So now, we’ve got everybody recertified, the train has a whole new skin on it and we’ve got a plan in place so we figured it can’t run through the winter so we’ll at least run it through the Thanksgiving weekend and offer these free rides as a community service in a lot of ways, a chance for folks to do something that might feel a little more like pre-Covid,” she added.
Every 15 minutes, a new group of 20 riders will hop on board, and Calogheros says the event could see up to 1,200 riders over the weekend.
To participate, residents must sign up for the event by getting a ticket on the Event Brite website.
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