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This fall, the N.C. Transportation Museum will offer rail aficionados a choice in their leisurely wanderings, not just which day to climb aboard the big train but also which city to visit.

The museum’s volunteer group will offer two train excursions as part of its annual fundraising promotion, one bound for Charlottesville, Va., on Oct. 31 and the other for Asheville the next morning.

The Asheville option revives a popular excursion the Spencer-based facility hosted years ago, said Misty Ebel, development coordinator for the museum’s volunteer support group.

“The past two years, we’ve gone to Charlottesville and that’s a wonderful trip,” Ebel said. “But in the past decade at least, this will be the first time for us going to Asheville.”

Both trips feature four-to-five hours of rail travel each way through stunning scenery tinged with the colors of autumn. Each also includes a three-hour layover in the destination city for shopping, dining or just knocking about in unfamiliar but inviting surroundings.

The Saturday morning run to Charlottesville includes a stop at J. Douglas Galyon Depot in downtown Greensboro, to take on more passengers about an hour after the 25-car train leaves from Spencer.

The next day’s run to Asheville boards only in Spencer.

The Charlottesville trip boasts three river crossings and passes the real mountain community fictionalized in “The Waltons” TV series of some years back. The trek to Asheville goes through three tunnels, makes a picturesque climb through the Blue Ridge Mountains and ends in Biltmore Village for lunch and browsing.

Each train features dining and cafe cars and will accommodate about 900 people. Box lunches will be for sale to travelers who want to spend their time exploring or shopping rather than dining during the layover in Charlottesville or Asheville.

Coach seats cost $140 and are available for either trip. A dwindling number of first-class seats remain for the Charlottesville excursion but are sold out for Asheville.

The excursions aren’t actually a museum function but are sponsored by the volunteer auxiliary that raises money “for additional programming and other things that the state is unable provide,” Ebel said. The foundation offers the excursions in partnership with another nonprofit, the Watauga Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

The museum is part of the N.C. Division of State Historic Sites and chronicles North Carolina’s progression from horse and buggy to rail and highway.

It is located in Spencer Shops, the restored industrial complex where the Southern Railway of yesteryear repaired its rolling stock.
 

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or taft.wireback@news-record.com