French Lick Scenic Railway — Attraction in French Lick

In a few words, disappointing and overpriced.

For reference, my family took a 1 pm ride on a cold day in mid-March in train car E, one of the Rock Island cars. We paid $74 for all 4 of us, including fees. The train departed on time at 1 pm and we were all done by 2:40 pm.

The ride is 9 miles out, then you reverse and go 9 miles back to the station. The cars were built in the 1920’s and it certainly shows. Peeling paint, rusting steel, tight quarters and most importantly - there is NO air condition and NO heat in the rock island cars. It was 29° the day of our ride and my kids were freezing in their coats and hats.

If riding in the winter, wear a scarf, gloves, and tall socks. My child’s legs were icicles from how cold the floor of the train is.

You will travel through one tunnel 2x, about 3 minutes each time. It does get pitch black for a moment but it’s brief.

The conductor made an attempt to speak on the loudspeaker to share historical facts but it was hard to hear over how rickety the train is and how loud the other passengers are.

Some things I did catch, you will pass the childhood home of basketball star Larry Bird and the place tomato juice was first made. The rest of the ride is advertised as “scenic”….I will let you be the judge but it mostly consisted of: abandoned cars, broken glass, old campers and various abandoned household items scattered about the woods (ie busted toilets and other garbage).

The one redeeming sight was a cute little waterfall, photo attached.

They do have bathrooms and a snack bar, and yes you are allowed to walk from car to car as the train moves. I didn’t expect alcohol to be served and it smelled like beer and the big group seated in our car was a bit rowdy and made it hard to enjoy.

All in all, if you have a child who is obsessed with trains, this may be a cool one time trip.

I would not consider this a date-worthy adventure or scenic by any stretch of the imagination. It gave us something to do and I’m glad we got to experience it. I truly don’t understand the hype. If it were more reasonably priced, for example less than $50 for a family of 4, I would be less...

My girlfriend and I were very excited to get on the train for the first time. We had never rode a train so the novel experience itself really hyped up the experience. The train itself was very nice and the seats were very comfortable and the conductor was very friendly and even spoke with us a little bit. Unfortunately, for it being billed as a scenic train ride there was very little scenery to see. You do get the experience of seeing many trees in a field and seeing a lot of old rundown houses but beyond that there's really not much of note. I didn't see any actual scenery that was that great. They do point out a waterfall which is somewhat lackluster and the childhood home of Larry Bird but all in all I don't think it was worth the $30 per ticket. It is definitely a one-time experience. We both got bored halfway through and started playing on our phones. The ride took about 2 hours, the train moves rather slow and they take you a certain distance and then the train just reverses and goes backwards. They bill it as being a two-hour train ride but in reality they just double the mileage you go by reversing the train so you really don't get the opportunity to see 2 hours worth of sightseeing. You have to look at the same places a second time as you go backwards. They also only had one person working at the check in business and we had to stand there in excess of 10 minutes while we were waiting for someone else in front of us to have some problem worked out. There were so many people standing around outside, I don't know why they didn't just have someone else come in and open up the line. Also parking can be a little difficult if you pulled into the initial parking lot. It was full and then it was very difficult to turn around. I wish they'd had some sort of indicator letting us know that that parking space was full so we didn't have the trouble of trying to have to turn around. All in all, it's definitely worth one trip but I don't think it's something that some one will want to repeat after they've already done it one time. Truth be told, there's really just not much scenic areas to explore in...

Regarding the Polar Express 2018... We went on this same ride in 2016 and were blown away. Everything was magical and our toddler loved everything about it. In 2016 the trainers were darkened setting a mood, the music was loud enough to hear over all the talking and excitement, there were dressed up elves, about 5 on our car, handing out air instruments for the kids dancing in the aisle, the train car was decorated with lots of goodies... we didn't want to leave. We recommended this ride to everyone we knew. Step forward to 2018 and it was a totally different experience. We had talked it up big time to the people who came with us, and it was a huge let down. So much has changed. There were no dimmed lights, only one strand of garland and lights on the very top of our two level train car so we really couldn't see them, the 2 elves we had in our car were embarrassed high schoolers half way dancing around, the music was so soft it could hardly be heard over the elves who were barely singing, the elves were only required to "dress up" by wearing a green tee shirt and hat with bells, there was only one musical instrument on the whole car and an elf kept that the whole time refusing to give it to any child, we were stuck for about 15 minutes and there was zero music and zero entertainment so super awkward. If I could do it all over I would happily stick with my 2016 memories. We won't be back ever again and I truly hope they up their game because unless you've gone before and had the time we had in 2016, you don't know what...