TAKE THE ORANGE CARS TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH.

We've celebrated the Pumpkin Patch trains of the nearby Illinois Railway Museum and East Troy Electric Railroad.  The weekend weather forecast in the general vicinity of Cold Spring Shops looks ideal for finding those apple cider donuts or that most sincere pumpkin patch, and children of all ages might be out for the ride.

The Key System's bridge units (which once hauled commuters from San Francisco to assorted East Bay destinations) are also orange.

Each October, two former Key System bridge units operated by the Western Railway Museum become more than artifacts of 20th century transit. They regain their original role of moving crowds of people, quickly.

The riders now are mostly kids and families visiting a trackside pumpkin patch, not commuters headed to jobs in San Francisco. You can hear an echo of rush hour, though.

“That’s the time of year we really move people, instead of just offer a scenic train ride, and those cars hold 130 people each, plus standees,” said Bob Towar, volunteer, treasurer and spokesperson for the Bay Area Electric Railroad Association. “They run every 30 minutes. And they’re full. We have some days that approach 1,000 visitors.”

The two-car, articulated, three-truck units were built in 1937 by Bethlehem Shipyard in Wilmington, Del., for service across the San Francisco Bay Bridge. They had cab signals and train stop equipment, and they were designed to help riders get on and off quickly.

The California museum, like the aforementioned nearby museums (and the Fox River Trolley Museum) operate on former interurban trackage.

The museum’s home is rural Rio Vista Junction, where state Highway 12 crosses over the former Sacramento Northern Railway mainline about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco. The association acquired 22 miles of the former SN from the Union Pacific in 1993. Most of it is idle, but the museum offers rides year-round on approximately 6 miles of re-electrified track south from the museum.

The trip to the Pumpkin Patch Festival at Gum Grove, accessible only by rail, is about 5 miles each way.

This year’s pumpkin trains operate on the last three weekends in October. They will run every 30 to 45 minutes between the museum and the patch, with trains leaving the museum between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. The museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“It’s our largest fundraising event of the year,” Towar said. “We partner with local Rotary Club chapters, and the event brings significant revenue to both organizations.”

Find yourself a preservation railroad, with or without a pumpkin patch, and enjoy it, in those last weekends before standard time resumes, and the snow flies.