ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, June 18, 1996                 TAG: 9606180107
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: DAN CASEY

CITY AGREEMENT CLEARS THE TRACK FOR ZOO CHOO

That much-loved miniature train soon may be chugging along up at Mill Mountain Zoo.

Roanoke City Council on Monday unanimously approved an agreement between the zoo, the Roanoke Jaycees and the city that clears one of the final hurdles to Mill Mountain Zoo Choo's resuming its decades-long run.

The train, which is owned by the Jaycees, stopped running July 15, 1994, after it derailed while entering a small tunnel. The accident injured several people, one seriously.

After the zoo worked out a new operation agreement with the Jaycees early this year, the train was expected to run again in mid-April. Volunteers laid new track, and it looked as if everything was a go.

But "the city fairly well insisted on being a party to the agreement, rather than simply approving the agreement between the zoo and Jaycees," said Steven Higgs, president of the Blue Ridge Zoological Society of Virginia, the zoo's owner. Since then, negotiations over the agreement have been the main thing keeping the train off its tracks.

With the approved agreement, all the zoo needs is a city amusement ride inspection and a few employees to operate the train. Higgs said it should be running soon.

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