All Aboard the Recently Revamped Skunk Train Website

 

If you haven’t experienced the Skunk Train, you’ll want to visit their revamped website that launched earlier this year. It’s a beautiful online presentation of all that they have to offer, including a fantastic history of this icon of the North Coast.

Since 1885, this venerable and historic Skunk has made its way through old-growth redwood groves, over scenic trestle bridges, through spectacular tunnels, and into the heart of the Noyo River canyon, with today?s riders enjoy the same pristine views that have remained largely unchanged for well over a century.

The new website offers a clean, visual and easy to navigate layout, making it easy to plan and book your ride and and plan for one of the most unique experiences that that Northern California has to offer.

“In an effort to get the very best information about our trips to guests, it became necessary to completely revamp our website,” said Robert Pinoli, Vice President of Mendocino Railway.

Skunk Train legacy

The new website offers a great history of the Skunk Train.

Brendan McGuigan served as the web designer on the project, putting his extensive destination marketing and communications experience to work in creating a fantastic result. He offers this overview of how he approached the design:

?Our motivations were really twofold ? we felt that our story was best served through the stunning imagery along the line, told through videos and photos, and we wanted to craft a new experience around that. Simple text layout, with a few hero images to really showcase the experience.”

McGuigan also noted major improvements to the mobile experience, where they had previously seen an extremely high bounce rate. So far so good, as that bounce rate has been coming down significantly since the launch.

We give this redesign of the Skunk Train website high scores at all levels, as it really does justice to the historic and scenic rail journey through the redwoods of Mendocino County, making it easy to explore their two routes, five historic trains, 134 years of history, and one amazing skunk!