My daughter and got on our big yellow xtracycle and took the last Seattle Train Yard Tour scheduled so far (previously on Bikehugger. We had a great time and and I learned quite a bit about… trains. For instance, the dumpster trash in Seattle is loaded on to stinkies and sent to the far reaches of the state? My daughter’s reached the age of omniscience so even though she didn’t actually learn anything she was reminded of a few facts and had a good time. More details inside and photos at the Bikehugger urban sightings pool.
The tour was just about 3 hours, as promised, maybe only an hour of actual riding at a social pace. The great thing about a train yard tour is that trains don’t like to go up hill so the route was almost entirely flat. We stopped at 3 of the major train yards, sometimes on bridges or overpasses 
so we could see what was going on in the yard.
Our guide was very knowledgeable about lines coming in to Seattle, the contents of the trains and where they headed out from here. He never described himself as a railfan, but I think he’d fall into that camp. We had a couple other hard core train spotters along on the tour, but mostly it was just average Seattle citizens coming to find out more about one of the many commerce channels we have coming into the city. 
Unfortunately, our guide only runs the tour intermittently, so you’ll have to wait until the next time it comes around. Check back on his site for future events and other tours.
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