These train folks are something.

They watched their beloved trains lose steam as a preferred mode of transportation during the latter part of the last century. But faithful to the core, they kept up their enthusiasm for train travel, believing the day would come again when it might prove attractive.

Some of them, like Portland's Phineas Sprague, actually bought up old trains and put them in museums they built. Others kept their train chops by running vintage locomotives on tourist excursions out of places like Conway, N.H., or on the railway between Belfast and Unity. Still others just dusted off their Kromer railroader's hats periodically ... and dreamed.

Now, as gas prices shoot skyward, the train folks' faith in rail travel as a viable form of modern transportation may yet be redeemed. You can get a piece of the action and see what keeps the train guys rolling when, on May 10, the Maine Rail Group and the 470 Railroad Club join with the Maine Central Railroad to offer a daylong, chartered roundtrip orgy of train travel between Rockland and ... well ... almost Augusta. For $50, you can don your own pinstriped engineer's cap, step into your coveralls and take the Nostalgia Special. From Rockland to Wiscasset, Brunswick and then back up a line to Hallowell and almost Augusta -- you can taste a bit of the past and what some train boosters hope will be a taste of the future as well.

"With the increasing cost of fuel, it's important to have alternatives to driving, especially if it becomes cost-prohibitive to take your car everywhere," says Patricia Quinn, executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority, who will speak to train riders on the May 10 excursion.

Might Quinn and her fellow train boosters be among the few people around who are, in fact, happy to see gas prices rise?

Oh, and we forgot -- there's food on the trip, as well. A box lunch is available for an extra $12 -- chew chew on the choo choo. It all sounds like a grand way to spend a spring day.