AboutJerry Yares Expertise Travel, sightseeing, dining, and sleeping here in East TN and the Great Smoky Mountains. Not a golfer, camper, boater, or fisherman.
Experience Lived here since 1998; many years of travel here before that.
Organizations belong to Local photo, nature, garden, and bird clubs
Expert: Jerry Yares Date: 4/23/2005 Subject: Smoky Mountains
Question Hi Jerry
Glad I found you on Allexperts.com. I've planned a trip to the smoky mountains for the coming long weekend and will be there for 3 days and have booked a chalet. We are 2 couples and have a 2 yr kid.
I know there is a train ride somwehere in the mountains that we are planning to book. I would appreciate if you can provide other suggestions to keep us occupied and make the best of our trip.
Thanks very very much,
Sanjesh
Answer Sanjesh:
Just received your inquiry. Please send your e-mail address and location to me at info@jyares.com. Also, the dates and the specifics of where you are staying would be very useful for follow-up help.
Actually, depending on where you are staying, you can choose from three train rides. The most impressive is the Great Smoky Mountains Railway (www.gsmr.com) which is owned by the same people who run the excellent Durango-Silverton in CO. It has stations in and a variety of runs from/to Dillsboro, Bryson City, and Andrews NC. Thomas the Tank Engine is coming to visit there some weekend this summer.
If you are staying on the TN side, there are two worthwhile train rides. One is the Three Rivers Rambler which runs from the downtown Knoxville riverfront up to the TN River headwaters. The other is the So Appalachia Rwy (www.sarm.com or .org, I forget which) that runs on scenic trackage around the Oak Ridge Nat Labs area where the a-bomb was developed during WW II. A coin-toss between the two. Both are delightful and short enough so that a 2-year-old would not be greatly inconvenienced. We had a visiting family group one time and rented the whole caboose on the Oak Ridge ride and it was wonderful.
The reason that I'd like to know where you are coming from and were you are staying is that particularly on weekends, the road traffic in and between Sevierville, Pigeon Forge, and Gatlinburg can become indescribable. When we first moved here six years ago, it took us three hours to get from Sevierville to a friend's wedding in Gatlinburg. We now have our secret backroads to bypass the traffic.
