Train of Lights - Niles Canyon Railway, Part II

We had a great experience on the Niles Canyon Railway.  We arrived just in time to catch the train (which I can't recommend).  Our son had fallen asleep in the car on the way to the Niles station (right near Niles Avenue in Fremont, which is a great neighborhood with lots of shops and a few restaurants).  It took him about 15 minutes to finally wake up; he was happily surprised to find himself already comfortably situated on the train.

The train was full of families, but not packed (perhaps since we were riding the train on the Tuesday after Christmas; the train can get very busy, especially on weekends in December before Christmas).

As we were moving through the Niles Canyon, my wife got up to get some hot cocoa from the food & drink car near the front of the train.  After a few minutes, the train came to a stop.

My wife returned about 5 minutes later.  It turned out that the train had decoupled.  Luckily, she hadn't made it to the hot chocolate and was on our side of the train.  The delay lasted about 20 minutes or so, by which time our son was just starting to get a bit restless.

The rest of the trip (which ended up at just under 2 hours because of the delay) was a mellow, fun ride for all of us.  Our son enjoyed walking through the different types of vintage cars (though we never did make it all the way to the hot chocolate car).

By the end of the ride, it was dark outside.  The Train of Lights is, indeed, a train of lights:

Here's the locomotive:

Santa Fe car:

More lights:

The outside of our car:

Here's where the train decoupled earlier in the afternoon: