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Metroparks adds Cohasset Express
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Guests travelling through the park on the Cohasset Express can view the park's natural beauty through large glass windows on either side of the trolley.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.The Cohasset Express offers spacious seating on either side of the trolley for guests at Mill Creek MetroParks.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.The Cohasset Express at Mill Creek Metroparks Farm offers a unique and stylish way to travel from one park destination to the next..
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Mill Creek Metroparks Executive Director Dennis Miller posed in the driver's seat of the Cohasset Express.
By TIM CLEVELAND
Mill Creek Metroparks has added another way to generate interest and revenue for the park with the purchase of the Cohasset Express trolley, which will not only be used for tours of the park, it will also be available for rent for outside parties.
The trolley, purchased for $25,000 last fall and with more money invested in it for improvements, will be making its first tours of Metroparks April 22 from 7:30-10:30 a.m. with a tour of the Ford Nature Center. More tours will be added.
“All our directors gave our board a tour of the Metroparks,” said Mill Creek Metroparks Executive Director Dennis Miller. “We started at Fellows Riverside Gardens on the north end of the park and we made our way all the way all the way to the south end of the park. It was then that we realized if we could not only give our board a tour but open this up to the public and actually have our employees share their knowledge with the general public. The very next week we stumbled across this at Haus Auto Group and we made it happen.”
After purchasing the vehicle, R&J Trucking Body Shop handled the body work and painting, while Custom Tarp did the vinyl windows.
Tours of the Metroparks are $5 per person, with each tour lasting between 60 and 90 minutes.
For outside parties wishing to rent the trolley, the rate is $350 for two hours, with the amount escalating beyond that time. A driver is included for the Cohasset Express, which seats from 14-16 people. “It’s a good way to showcase the Metroparks maybe in a different fashion, from a different angle,” said Metroparks planning manager Justin Rogers. “Give more people the opportunity to get out there and check it out. What better way than by a historic looking trolley. It’s just a way to give people a different perspective and a little bit of history with our tours.”
Miller said the Cohasset Express name was thought up by the Metroparks staff.
“They brainstormed. Initially we were going to call it Volney One after our founder,” he said. “Then somebody came up with the Cohasset Express after Lake Cohasset. It kind of stuck and everybody liked it. If we get another trolley, maybe it’ll be Newport Express. Who knows?”
Both Rogers and Miller said they were excited about the addition of the Cohasset Express to the Mill Creek Metroparks.
“It was really a team effort to get where we are and we hope the public really embraces our newest addition,” Rogers said.
“We’re really excited about all the possibilities that we’re going to have, whether it’s a wedding party wanting to travel to different locations in the park for their photographer things like that,” Miller said.