It's nice to see people thinking about making a fun activity for kids accessible. Kids love those little trains, or at least I did when I rode the miniature train around Forest Park in my hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, oh, so many years ago. :-)The Grand Haven, Mich., Tribune says wheelchair-using kids can now ride the Knights of Columbus' miniature Tootsie Train thanks to Tom Bishop, who spent four years building the new accessible caboose. He designed the wheelchair-accessible car, with the help of Twin Lake-based Jerry's Fabricating and it features federally regulated wheelchair tracks and safety straps.
"There are a lot of kids that can't get out of a wheelchair or shouldn't get out of a wheelchair to ride the train," said Bishop, 73, who has been a Knights of Columbus member for more than three decades. "I remember at a fire prevention event one year, a child in a wheelchair wanted to ride the train really, really bad. I had to walk alongside the train to hold the child up. We had seat belts, but we didn't have shoulder harnesses."
