FAMILY WEEKEND: Southern California has its share of small, kid-nice, park-based railroads. Some are pretty hop-on and hop-off and call it a day, but then there's Orange's own Irvine Park Railroad. The train is turning 16 over the Saturday, Feb. 25 and Sunday, Feb. 26 weekend, and there are several sweet parts to the celebration in store. The sweetest, perhaps? The ticket price of two bucks. If that price sounds familiar to you, then you must have been patronizing the Irvine Park Railroad back when it opened in 1996. Yep, it is going back to its early-day prices, if only for two days (and, note: You'll need to use those two-dollar tickets during the Feb. 25 and 26 weekend, so don't store 'em for later).
ALSO TWO BUCKS: Hot dogs, ice cream, and sodas, also for the anniversary weekend only. By golly. Shouldn't every venue and attraction, when celebrating an anniversary, revisit the dollar amounts of the year it first opened? We support this proposition. We also support being out with the fam on an unseasonably beautiful February day and not spending a bundle of cash. If you can't make the anniversary bash, check out the other special events the railroad hosts throughout the year (including, most famously, its December Santa days).
