{"id":212037,"date":"2026-06-06T00:03:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/212037\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T00:03:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T00:03:14","slug":"erie-zoos-new-electric-train-first-of-its-kind-in-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/212037\/","title":{"rendered":"Erie Zoo\u2019s new electric train first of its kind in PA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Locomotive 344 at the Erie Zoo is back after a 3-year hiatus, but it\u2019s not what you might remember.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The train was sent to North Carolina to be converted from gas to electric and is the first of its kind in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\/wx\/weather-where-you-are-brodie-wesson-live-at-the-loomis-bros-circus-in-meadville\/?ipid=promo-link-block1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Weather Where You Are: Brodie Wesson live at the Loomis Bros. Circus in Meadville;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Weather Where You Are&quot;}\"> Weather Where You Are: Brodie Wesson live at the Loomis Bros. Circus in Meadville <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The work was made possible thanks to the donation of the Okel family, who got to take an inaugural ride on the locomotive Friday morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hali Hartley, lead manager of public relations, marketing &amp; events at the Erie Zoo, explained how the train will operate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cThe train will be running during daytime hours for only for the first few weeks as we\u2019re learning the kinks of the electric train, just making sure we know how many laps it can make a day with its battery and everything. Our plan is, after the first few weeks, to be able to run this in the evening for our evening events like Glow Wild, Wild Wednesdays and Zoo Boo, but for now it will just run during daytime,\u201d Hartley said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a class=\"link \" href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\/news\/local-news\/lake-erie-deemed-best-lake-by-usa-today-voters\/?ipid=promo-link-block2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Lake Erie deemed best lake by USA Today voters;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Lake Erie deemed best lake by USA Today voters&quot;}\"> Lake Erie deemed best lake by USA Today voters <\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Rides cost $5 for non-members and $4 for zoo members. Kids younger than 2 years old ride for free.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Zoo officials said the locomotive\u2019s conversion aligns more closely with their mission to implement greener practices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yourerie.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com.&quot;}\" class=\"link \"> For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WJET\/WFXP\/YourErie.com. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Locomotive 344 at the Erie Zoo is back after a 3-year hiatus, but it\u2019s not what you might&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,3466,92988,92987],"class_list":["post-212037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-erie-zoo","tag-hali-hartley","tag-zoo-boo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}