Visitors enjoying today’s BBQ wave to those on the train at the Railway & Forestry Museum

Prince George, BC – The Prince George Railway & Forestry Museum is touted as a ‘destination’ museum and today was definitely a case in point…

Visitors taking in today’s ‘Family Fun’ day were from across the region and around the world.  Some had travelled to Prince George specifically for the event, others stopped by as part of their visit to the city.

Five-year-old Layne Duncan is the serious-looking ‘Batman’ in the background, while his six-year-old cousin, Peirce Duncan, is the smiling ‘puppy with fangs’. 

Both boys are from Williams Lake and came with their parents to spend the day at the museum.

Layne says, "I just can’t wait to ride the train."  His mom, Val West, says the family has been planning to come to Family Day for the past several years, but decided this was the year. 

Similarly, Rosanne and Rodney Peters drove from Vanderhoof this morning to treat their three-year-old son, Noah, to a day of hands-on fun.

Photo at left shows Noah (on right) spending some time checking out a speeder car with Bryen Zazalak of Prince George.

The Peters family has also made a special trip to Prince George to take in the museum’s ‘Thomas the Train’ event, as well.

 Sandy Walsh (on right) and her husband, Norman, brought their grandchildren Gabriel (9yrs) and Daniel (16 months) from Sicamous to visit great-grandma, Audrey Barnett (on left) and the entire family was enjoying the day at the museum. 

Walsh says her grandfather was a railroader, so she’s always been fascinated by trains. 

Gabriel says the trains on site are, "very cool".

The trek here was much longer for young sisters, Zelalem and Dagmawit Tsega, who travelled from Ethiopia with their mother, Sara Patterson.

Sara is originally from Prince George and the trio is here until January to spend time with family.  They were at the museum with grandma, Suzanne Patterson and took time out for a picture with 250News in front of the 1520 Steam Engine.

Four-year-old Zelalem enjoyed getting an inside look at the cab of a fire truck – she had several questions for firefighter Kevin Thorne, as members of Prince George Fire Rescue Hall #1 stopped by River Road after some morning calls to open up the truck to visitors. 

Firefighter Ryan Waddington says they had a steady stream of kids and parents stop by, but not so many that they couldn’t spend some time with each group to really chat.  He, too, was surprised by the number of visitors from outside the city.

Another family, with Prince George connections, was visiting from Tokyo.

Railway & Forestry Museum Executive Director, Ranjit Gill, says the museum’s draw is just simply "amazing."

 "We get people from all over the world – they do their research on the internet," she says.  "The last long weekend, we had a tour bus from Germany – we had all these German tourist that came to visit because they are really interested in trains."