4th Annual Railfest and Clodbuster Vintage Baseball

Welcome all to the first post of Weekends in Dayton. This blog is dedicated to spreading the experience of what there is to do in Dayton Ohio. People around here have a bad habit of whining about how little there is to do, and how boring it is. But if you actually look just about anywhere, SOMETHING is going on, whether it's a sports venue, a musical or play, to night life entertainment or hiking through a state park, if you have nothing to do, you aren't trying hard enough.

For the first post, my roommate pushed me into going to a relative newcomer in the list of Dayton festivals called Railfest, which is held in historic Carillon Park. Though there have been various train related events at Carillon in the past, an organized festival is only in it's 4th iteration and the crowd was pretty decent.






Many people set up their own train sets, some in interesting ways, including one in a in a suitcase and another in a guitar case. Outside in the park there were some larger trains set up as well as free rides on a miniature train set.

In the Family Transportaion Center, which is modeled after a train yard Round House, various historic engines, local train cars and even more train set make an appearance.










There are also, obviously, quite a few historic spots to explore and since we were there we toured the Wright Brothers Aviation Center as well. The event itself was free, however it is 8 dollars to get into the park, $5.00 for children. If you have never been to Carillon Park and have felt like visiting, then I would definately recommend waiting for an event like this to do so, since there will be a lot more to do than just take the tours.

For a complete rundown of all the pictures and some better sizes, you can go here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/DkSavior02/WeekendsInDayton?authkey=Gv1sRgCNKHodC0sLa71gE

For more information about Carillon Park,
http://carillonpark.org/index.html

And for more about about Railfest and the Carillon Park Rail and Steam Society that has been putting on the even the last few years: http://www.cprss.org/index.shtml


While we were there, we noticed the vintage baseball team a friend of mine plays on was out in the front of the park playing a few matches. They are named the Clodbusters, and the team has been playing since about 1989. They, and many other teams across the country adhear to rules of baseball dating back as far as the 1860s, while dressed in period garb. Chris was kind enough to talk a while on camera about what they do. Instead of listening to me talk about it, why not listen to a history buff as well as an avide baseball fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXUaNOijsko



For more information about The Clodbuster Baseball Club, you can go to their website here.
http://www.clodbusters.org/index.html

And for some far better pictures than I could take, head on over to the Dayton Daily News at
http://projects.daytondailynews.com/cache/galleries/Sports/General/062809vintagebaseball/


Need a cheap afternoon with the family? They have two more meetings in Carillon Park this year, first on July 25th from 1-3pm against the Deep River Grinders, and again on September 12th from 1-3pm against the Cincinnati Buckeyes. Come on out with some sandwiches and sodas and watch your local vintage baseball club!

Until next week! And keep an eye out for things to do from the links on the right hand side. Some obvious choices are the Downtown Dayton fireworks display, the Cityfolk Festival and First Fridays!