By Gayla Cawley Correspondent The kid-friendly Sloper Express mini-train has pulled into the Rossini Program station at YMCA Camp Sloper. The train’s name is a play on words using the camp’s name and the popular holiday movie, “The Polar Express.” Camp Director Mark Pooler said he got the idea when he was taking his family for a trip to the Meriden Mall over the winter. The mall featured a new mini-train, designed to give kids a ride around a mini-train track. For a ride to accommodate all of his children, the trip would have cost $15 to $20 for about a five minute session. Pooler liked the idea of the train but wasn’t pleased with the price. He began to think about how a train would be able to serve the children at camp, without emptying their parents’ pockets. After some brainstorming, he began to search online for different manufacturers. After some searching, where he found a price range of $15,000 to $30,000 for the train, he settled on Roundhouse Company because of their friendly sales atmosphere, optional design, and a median price of $15,000 to $20,000. The train was paid for out of the camp’s Improvement fees line of [...]
By Gayla Cawley Correspondent The kid-friendly Sloper Express mini-train has pulled into the Rossini Program station at YMCA Camp Sloper. The train’s name is a play on words using the camp’s name and the popular holiday movie, “The Polar Express.” Camp Director Mark Pooler said he got the idea when he was taking his family for a trip to the Meriden Mall over the winter. The mall featured a new mini-train, designed to give kids a ride around a mini-train track. For a ride to accommodate all of his children, the trip would have cost $15 to $20 for about a five minute session. Pooler liked the idea of the train but wasn’t pleased with the price. He began to think about how a train would be able to serve the children at camp, without emptying their parents’ pockets. After some brainstorming, he began to search online for different manufacturers. After some searching, where he found a price range of $15,000 to $30,000 for the train, he settled on Roundhouse Company because of their friendly sales atmosphere, optional design, and a median price of $15,000 to $20,000. The train was paid for out of the camp’s Improvement fees line of [...]