All Aboard!  New GPS Audio Tour Rolls Out of the Station

on Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad

AUSTIN, Texas (June 3, 2009) – Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad (CVSR) and Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP) will launch their new “Voices of the Valley” GPS-enabled audio tour for riders to enjoy starting June 3, 2009. 

Passengers aboard CVSR will be immersed in the stories and sounds of the Cuyahoga Valley when history is brought to life through tales about the earliest settlement of the valley, the coming of the Ohio & Erie Canal and the Valley Railway, the creation of Cuyahoga Valley National Park and more. 

Easy-to-use-headphones and a receiver are provided by CVSR and will be available for all daily excursion trips between Rockside and Akron Northside stations.  Activated by state-of-the-art GPS technology, different stories are automatically presented as the train travels north and south. A captioned version of the tour is available for passengers with hearing impairments. This audio tour was made possible through a grant from the National Park Service’s Alternative Transportation program. 

BarZ Adventures provided the GPS-enabled delivery systems, a combination of TriggerPOINT wireless audio receiver headsets and GPS Ranger® handheld devices for captioning. BarZ Adventures worked with Ontario-based AudioConexus for the TriggerPOINT delivery system. The audio tour content was produced by Antenna Audio, Inc., the Discovery Communications owned audio tour company.  

“This was a fun and unique project for BarZ, seeing that it was a collaborative effort between several companies involved in interpretive tour technology. We are proud of the end product and believe that it will greatly enhance the CVSR excursion experience,” said Wm. Lee Little, founder and CEO of BarZ Adventures Inc. 

Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad starts summer service, offering excursions Wednesdays through Sundays departing from Rockside Station in Independence, Peninsula Depot and Akron Northside Station, on June 3, 2009.  Passengers can climb aboard with an all day boarding pass for just $15 for adults and $10 for children.  Excursion choices include a round trip through the 33,000 acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park, or explorer options where passengers can get off in the Village of Peninsula or Akron to visit a separate attraction before returning by rail to their originating station.  Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling 1-800-468-4070 or in person, ½ hour prior to departure at the stations. 

ABOUT CVSR
CVSR is a private sector, not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) volunteer supported organization operating in partnership with Cuyahoga Valley National Park and is dedicated to the preservation of passenger rail transportation in Cuyahoga Valley and the historic Ohio & Erie Canalway.  CVSR is entering its 36^th year of excursion rail service. Information on all CVSR trips can be found at www.cvsr.com.

BarZ Adventures Inc, founded in 2005, is an Austin, TX based company combining experts in the fields of computer delivery systems and interpretive content development. BarZ Adventures has designed the patented GPS Ranger® and Zoo Ranger® systems, and new Ranger Quest™ GPS gaming experience, with large venues and their visitors in mind – its sole mission is to enhance the visitor experience at high visitation locations using modern technology. GPS Ranger tours are currently available at Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Cedar Breaks National Monument, Vicksburg National Military Park, Death Valley National Park, Shenandoah National Park, Independence National Historical Park, Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park.  Zoo Ranger tours are available at the San Francisco Zoo, Dallas Zoo, Oklahoma City Zoo and Santa Barbara Zoo.  Historic walking tours are available in Key West and St. Augustine, Florida, Bermuda, Stockyards Station and Texas Trail of Fame in Ft. Worth, and Austin, Texas, which was also the first GPS tour to be made available in American Sign Language (ASL). BarZ is proud to offer ADA compatible and accessible tours available in ASL, captioning, audio description and with accessible features information for the physically disabled. Additional tours are coming soon to Sedona (Arizona), Victoria (British Columbia), Santa Catalina Island (California), Great Bend (Kansas) and Poplar Forest (Virginia). The first Ranger Quest gaming adventure will be launched at the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C. in June. For more information, log on to www.barzadventures.com or call (512) 732-0135.