Blue Ridge Scenic Railway

Alyssa Bowers

Very fun little excursion. Perfect for kids and adults! My 4 year old had the time of his life on the train and exploring the adorable town in Tennessee. Definitely get the open air cars if you can! The shop on the train sells a ton of snacks and even gifts. It is a bit pricey but definitely worth doing once, especially if you have anyone who loves trains in your group.

Amanda Gillette

Ages 6mo-61yo & we all enjoyed ourselves. We rode in an open air car but there are closed ones as well. We enjoyed to views along the 1hr route up & the 2 hr pit stop on the state line, as well as the 1hr ride back. Would've been a little nice to have longer than 2hrs. How fun to take pics of yourself in 2 states at one time! The guys walked the train cars to see them all. Mom visited to snack stand in one of the cars for candies, popcorn, hot tea, & hot chocolate. The guys also stopped by the souvenir stand in one of the cars. We also enjoyed to 2 guitarist who walked car to car singing & playing songs. We recommend & we will do again!

patricia bazemore

***Updating to 5 stars because I was informed the railway is completely separate from the rail bikes but leaving my review of the rail bikes. ***Update- After some back and forth with Judy, a different person contacted me and offered me a FULL refund and a gas card to cover my expenses. So, I only lost time. They also offered to cover our ride if we come back. I'm not sure if we will or not (I'm still bitter about how we were initially treated). I'll update if we do. Freedom Rail Bikes called less than 3hrs before our ride time & said we needed to be 40 minutes early. I explained that we were 2hrs away and had planned to be there 15min early, as the website indicated when we booked several days ago. She took note of my name & said that would be fine. We got there at the time we said we would & were told we wouldn’t be able to to ride a rail bike because we were the last ones to sign in & one was broken. She said to fill out the waiver anyway & we could ride if someone didn’t show. As we were filling out our waiver, another group showed up that hadn’t signed in yet. Yay! I thought we would for sure be able to ride. Instead, she let them on the rail bikes ahead of us & told us we could either take a full refund and ride nothing or ride on the speeder, a motorized cart that pulls the bikes for half of a refund. We had driven 2hrs just for the rail bikes. I asked if they had a 4pm slot we could do instead. She said no, that they had cancelled that one due to the owners being in town. I let her know I wasn’t happy with it & we reluctantly got in the speeder. Once we were on, we were then told I’d be going backwards the whole trip. What was suppose to be a peaceful ride through nature and the highlight of my daughter’s spring break, turned into a noisy exhaust filled ride pulling the other bikers. She should’ve given us a FULL refund and offered a free ride another time to make up for the experience. She knew I was driving two hours and didn’t bother to even call. She didn’t ask if there were any locals that might be willing to come back the next day. It was ride the loud stinky speeder, which broke down halfway through requiring us to wait for someone to repair it, or ride nothing. I suggest anyone that isn’t local not to travel there for the experience. We were informed that their carts jump track often, which is what broke the one that was down that day. The owner was there and didn’t offer to make it right either.

Damian

If you’re lucky enough to have comfortable weather, I recommend the open air. The views were nice and the town we stopped in was small but definitely had its charm. The concession stand was actually cheaper than I’d expect. They could be the type to charge movie theater prices but I appreciate that they aren’t, Shirts were only 20 etc. Would go again for the specialty rides as well.