Conductor Seth Rusnak drives passengers through Baton Rouge Zoo.
Cue Johnny Cash:
I hear that train a-comin’, a comin’ round the bend…
Only, at the Baton Rouge Zoo, the train delivers a different kind of spectacle. What comes around the bend is a gang of white geese, marching single file and looking for trouble.
A gang of white geese walk in a line around the bend of the Baton Rouge Zoo train. They’re one of the sights seen along the train route.
Wait, that’s not a verse in Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” but it is what riders on BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo train see when rounding the bend somewhere near the giraffe habitat.
“There are days when they get in there with the giraffes and won’t leave,” Brittany Tully said. “They’re kind of a little gang around here.”
Tully is the zoo’s senior communication manager. She’s taken this ride before, and she’s the first to admit that it never gets old.
Conductor David Mills explains the control panel before leading a train ride at Baton Rouge Zoo.
There’s just something about taking the train trip around the zoo, how it gives you a behind-the-scenes tour of its universe and how its wheels beat out a rhythm on the track that does, indeed, bring the first verse of Cash’s classic tune to mind.
But it’s the notorious geese that seem to rule at this moment, scowling at the visitors, letting them know that passersby are treading on their territory.
They’re the ones who live on these grounds, after all. And Tully can’t help but laugh.
Families get onboard the train cars before ride at Baton Rouge Zoo.
She knows them well, and they’ve become a part of the show that is this train ride. Even conductor David Mills points them out along the way, and he’s probably the person who knows the route best.
Mills has been riding the zoo’s train since childhood. He became one of six conductors in 2019, when he helped zoo personnel write the script.
After all, a train ride through any park setting would be incomplete without narration. Visitors love a story about the tour, and Mills delivers plenty of tales about the animals, their habitats and the history of the zoo.
The Baton Rouge Zoo’s train pictured in 1970, the year the zoo opened in north Baton Rouge.
It’s a history that includes the train, which began running in 1970, the year the zoo opened in north Baton Rouge near Baker. In those days, the train’s depot was located at the original zoo entrance on Thomas Road.
Remnants of the original ride can be seen in old tracks leading to nowhere from the former ticket booth across from a sign marking the Cypress Bayou Railroad Station. It was here that the train began running with a diesel engine.
That entrance was closed in 2024 after the zoo redesigned its park with a new entrance at Greenwood Park. The train had stopped running in 2021 during the COVID pandemic, so the redesign’s grand opening also marked the train’s return, complete with a new route.
A sign marks the original depot for the Baton Rouge Zoo train, known as the Cypress Bayou Train Station, remnants of its old train tracks at the zoo’s original entrance at Thomas Road.
“The train runs clockwise now, but it ran counterclockwise when it started out,” Tully said.
The diesel engine gave way to a gas engine in 2010. Today, the train is pulled by an electric engine.
“The locomotive was manufactured between 2021 and 2022,” Mills said. “But our cars are older. We have a handicapped car built in 2012, and the other three are from the old Fun Fair Park.”
Riders get a view at a pair of bovine during a train ride at Baton Rouge Zoo.
Any mention of the late amusement park at the corner of Florida Boulevard and Airline Highway will spark memories for many. Fun Fair Park operated from 1963 to 1999, featuring such popular attractions as the Galixi and Wild Mouse roller coasters.
And, of course, there was the Bayou Safari Train, operated by park owner Sam Haynes, which hosted countless birthday party rides through the years.
Many of the attractions were moved to Dixie Landin’ after Fun Fair Park’s closure, but the zoo engine pulls three of the former park’s train cars, each with six seats that can hold two to four riders.
A close up of a turtle seen during a train ride at Baton Rouge Zoo.
For a $3 ticket, riders experience a relaxing ride around the zoo and relive a few childhood memories made at a beloved Baton Rouge amusement park.
And they have opportunities to make new memories every half hour between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
Mills stands next to the engine at the train depot just beyond the new zoo entrance. Once riders have boarded, he takes his place in the engine seat, instructs riders to keep their hands inside the car and takes off.
Hopping on BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo’s train for a ride around its themed habitats throughout the park on a sunny summer day. Staff video by Robin Miller
This is also the starting point of his narration, beginning with the thrill of a long tunnel, then moving on to the tortoise enclosure, where the shelled reptiles escape into tunnels of their own at the train’s approach.
Though it seems they eventually would become used to the clackity-clack of wheels and the call of the whistle, the turtles simply don’t like the noise, but that’s OK.
The train passes them quickly and enters the zoo’s North American sector, where Boudreaux’s Bait Shop stands in the wooded area behind animal habitats.
Conductor David Mills tells passengers to keep their hands, legs, fingers and toes inside the train car before their ride through the Baton Rouge Zoo on Thursday, July 24, 2025.
There’s no real Boudreaux and no bait for sale — it’s just a prop.
Next up is the South American section with its maned wolves and swimming tapirs.
While passing the Capital One Pavilion, where the zoo serves up cupcakes at birthday parties, Mills tells the story behind the engine, a small reproduction of a C.P. Huntington.
A full train car passes by the old entrance of Baton Rouge Zoo.
The original C.P. Huntington engine was built in 1863, purchased by the Central Pacific Railroad and named for Collis P. Huntington, third president of the railroad’s parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad.
“The C.P. Huntington was used in the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad and is now on exhibit at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento,” Mills said.
Chance Rides of Wichita has been building reproductions since 1961. More than 400 operate today, making it the most popular park train reproductions are in operation, making the model the most popular park train.
Conductor David Mills looks back to check on his passengers during a train ride at Baton Rouge Zoo.
The Baton Rouge Zoo’s model continues its trek through the park’s Realm of the Tiger and African sections before ending at the Giraffe Overlook or, as it could be called on this day, Notorious Goose Gang Hangout.
They strut around with “don’t mess with us” in their eyes, though riders mostly just laugh and snap photos.
And somewhere, at least one rider hears Johnny Cash singing about a train coming ’round the bend.
For more information, visit brzoo.org.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theadvocate.com ’
