@happilyeverexploring opens her reel in a dining car and puts the pitch in the first line of on screen text: “2hrs from NYC & 3hrs from DC. This vintage train in Pennsylvania will transport you back in time.” The reel runs about 15 seconds. It shows a woman seated at a white tablecloth under chandeliers, a pair of yellow paper tickets held up to the camera, and a Victorian style station building painted in blue and yellow.
The caption names the ride as a “bucket list train ride in Pennsylvania” and tags the Colebrookdale Railroad, which she says boards in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. She gives the distances as 1 hour from Philadelphia, 2 hours from New York City, 3 hours from Washington, DC and 4 hours from Pittsburgh. The reel ends at dusk, with the creator walking toward the station under strings of lights beneath the text “welcome to the Colebrookdale Railroad, Boyertown, PA.”
Inside the car, the camera moves from the dining room to the table. There is a folded napkin, a bread roll, a place card and the yellow tickets resting beside the plates. The food shown includes a plate of sliced meat with mashed potatoes and green beans, a chicken dish over pasta with chopped tomato, a cup of coffee and a slice of cheesecake. On screen text in the middle of the reel reads: “It was voted one of the best scenic train rides in the country & winds thru Pennsylvania’s Secret Valley.” The reel does not say which dinner she booked or what it cost.
The caption fills in the rest of the planning. Tickets “start at $40pp for adults,” she writes, and she suggests buying in advance to secure a seat on the restored Edwardian style train car of your choice. Rides last one to two hours depending on the excursion, and the choices she lists are seasonal brunch, lunch and dinner tours, fall foliage and cider and donut rides, and holiday excursions with Santa. She closes by telling viewers to send the reel to whoever they want to “travel back in time” with.
The railroad’s own excursion page lines up with most of that. It lists a fall foliage tour without a meal from $40 for 90 minutes, an Autumn Cider and Donuts Express from $50 for one hour, and a brunch from $60 for 90 minutes. Dinner excursions in what it calls Dining Class cars run 2 hours, with the price shown as a range per excursion, and the $40 in the caption matches the lowest listed price, which is the no meal foliage tour.
For a reader planning a weekend around it, the reel and the railroad’s pages point to a few concrete steps. First, pick the excursion before the date. The 1 hour cider and donut ride, the 90 minute foliage tour and the 2 hour dinner are different products with different prices, and the caption’s $40 figure matches the foliage tour on the railroad’s list. Second, book in advance, which the creator recommends in her caption, since the railroad sells most of its excursions through an online booking button. Third, check the season. The creator’s caption mentions foliage, cider and holiday rides, and the railroad’s listing is organized around autumn and winter events.
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