Sure, riding the zoo's new train is cool and all, admits 5-year-old Charlotte Corcoran. But the really cool thing about the Falls Road Zephyr is what goes on around the train.
"It was great; I got to see all the animals," Charlotte said yesterday after she and her dad, Rick, a member of the zoo's board of directors, got an early seat on the Zephyr. "The best part was I got to see the monkeys."
Train-less since 2005, when its old miniature locomotive had to be taken off the rails — it was falling apart, zoo officials said, and replacement parts were increasingly tough to find — the Maryland Zoo at Baltimore officially gets back into the miniature-railroad business at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.
With a clang and a whistle, chugging along at a top speed of about 6 mph, the Zephyr takes riders on a roughly 10-minute ride along its winding mile-long track, over a 130-foot bridge, behind the chimpanzee enclosure and the giraffe house, and through a section of Druid Hill Park that, until now, has been largely off the beaten path.
"You'll love it," promised Maryland first lady Katie Curran O'Malley, one of about 150 politicos, zoo officials and guests invited for an early ride on the Zephyr Tuesday afternoon. "It actually is a little bit like I remember it as a young girl. It's just right for the kids."
The three-car Zephyr, which can carry about 70 passengers, cost the state $2.6 million. Zoo President Donald P. Hutchinson said it would pay for itself through tickets sales ($2 for zoo members, $3 for everyone else) and by increasing interest in the 134-year-old facility, the third oldest zoo in the U.S.
"It'll be a great revenue generator for us," said Hutchinson, predicting the train will bring in between $200,000 and $300,000 a year, based on annual ridership of about 140,000. "It's also another sign that the zoo is vibrant once again. And it will introduce people to wooded areas of Druid Hill Park that they've never really visited."
Among the Zephyr's biggest fans Tuesday was Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. She and O'Malley shared the front seat on the inaugural ride out of the zoo's newly built Jones Falls Station, and Rawlings-Blake enjoyed herself so much that she came back for seconds, this time accompanied by her 6-year-old daughter, Sophia.
"That first bridge, it was so beautiful," the mayor said. "You know, we have a beautiful city."