How Many ‘Chuggas’ Come Before a ‘Choo Choo?’

My son was just a baby when one of our neighbors decided to have a huge garage sale and I can't resist a good bargain so I packed up my baby in our stroller and went out to browse, not realizing at that time I would end up buying something my son would grow to love.

Under one of the garage sale tables, in a bin covered in dust was what looked like a train set. I initially thought that if it worked I might buy it to run around our Christmas tree because when my husband was growing up his family always put out a Christmas train.

Knowing absolutely nothing about trains, I decided to take a chance and bought the entire bin of train cars and tracks for five bucks, questioning my decision as I struggled to carry it and push the stroller at the same time. Was it worth it? Yes, it was.

It turns out the bin was filled with a complete Lionel train set, worth a few hundred dollars! Since the day I bought the train set at the garage sale, my son has been obsessed with trains. We have train conductor costumes, books, whistles, DVDs, and every Thomas and Friends train car ever made.

Yesterday as our son sat on his bedroom floor playing with his train set, my husband and I found ourselves in what can only be described as an "interesting" conversation which revolved around how many ‘chuggas’ should be said before ‘choo choo.’ My husband insisted that it was six 'chuggas' while I was adamant that only two 'chuggas' should be said before 'choo choo.'

There was only one way to end the debate. Google. Because Google is never wrong, right? A quick search took us to a book on the subject and why would a children's author lie? According to a book written by Kevin Lewis, the answer is a simple two 'chuggas.'

Now you know. You may not believe it, but if you ever find yourself in a 'chuggs' debate, you'll be able to pull this out of your back pocket.  And, if you still need more proof, here's a video from Disney and again, why would Disney lie to us?