Site Survey

The Saratoga Spring train station.

As I've written in previous blog entries, we went to Saratoga Springs for Thanksgiving weekend to experience the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train fundraising show. The Holiday Train wasn't pulling into the Saratoga Springs train station until 7:20pm though... so we had a little extra time to check out the station in the daylight to do a quick 'site survey'.

I have to say that we both were impressed and even a bit envious of this train station. We found ourselves wishing we had train facilities like this in our own neighborhood!

Although this station is relatively new, it retains some classic train station styling. Even though we were initially disappointed that this station is not located in the heart of downtown, it is very close and has quite an impressive roadway entry which we found rather nice.

There is quite a bit happening at this station... Amtrak comes and goes a few times throughout the day... the Saratoga and North Creek Railway provides scenic tours throughout the year... the Saratoga and North Creek Railway also provides a Christmas season "Polar Express" train excursion which is amazing... this station is also a bus terminal... parking seems adequate... the station's facilities and shops are clean and appropriate for the area/season... and, there are four tracks at this station. There is no doubt that I was pleasantly surprised by this station. It is a nice combination of quaint rural, suburban and commuter. And, there are plans in place to expand rail service to this station.

Sheila and I arrived at the station at around 3:15pm to do a quick site survey. Whenever I am going to do some photography and videography, I like to walk around the place beforehand to get a feel of the place, check angles, check lighting (although, in this situation, we knew it would be very dark), try to find places to squeeze for good shots, decide which lenses would be best for this site, etc. We also wanted to scope out the parking situation for this popular evening event.

We knew parking would be difficult with so many things happening in a short amount of time. Within just one hour before our scheduled show, one Amtrak train was arriving... a freight train was passing through... The Polar Express was arriving from its 5:30pm excursion... a bus came and went... and hundreds upon hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of people were at the station waiting for the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train to arrive! Even though this parking lot was significantly larger than anything we see in the north country, we knew that parking would be tough and we would need to arrive as soon as possible that evening.

We arrived at the station just before 6pm for the 7:20pm arrival of the Holiday Train... we managed to get the last of the parking spots in the lot farthest from the station. There were already a lot of people there! We had a parking spot though so that was good news! I didn't want to have to try to figure out where to park if we couldn't get into the station's parking lot. The next closest place would be a very long distance away.

It took us only about five minutes to walk from our parking spot to the station... it was a fairly long lot but we were in the station's lot!

When we arrived at the station, we showed Frank and Christine around. We visited The Polar Express shop inside the station and bought a few things for all the grandchildren (theirs and ours). That was a nice little shop and I could have easily bought much more than we did buy!

Then we headed outside to claim an area for us to view the Holiday Train. It was a cold wintery night but we were dressed for the weather and, subsequently, had no problems with the cold.

As we waited, Amtrak came and went... a long freight train passed on through making everyone think that perhaps the Holiday Train was a bit early until it came into view and we saw it was just a run-of-the-mill, undecorated freight train... and The Polar Express arrived and dropped off families dressed in their Christmas pajamas... (I'll add more about The Polar Express in a different blog entry)

So, we stood out in the wintery, snowy evening... with Christmas in the air... waiting for the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train to arrive and their holiday show to begin...

I was very glad, however, that we had a chance to do a quick site survey in the afternoon!