The Train, The Train

October 2, - Ely, Nevada

What a fun morning we had in Ely, (pronounced E-Lee) Nevada. Ely is on the central eastern edge of Nevada and is home to the Northern Nevada Railway National Historic Landmark. It is the top rated rail museum, and people from all over the world come to visit.  We stopped last evening to see what it is all about, and decided to stay over and take the train ride this morning. We were told we could stay in their parking lot overnight, so enjoyed a free night right there.

Our free campsite next to one of the museum buildings

There are several different train rides available, and some exclusive deals you can purchase if you want to spend some bigger bucks. You could even drive the train if you wanted to spend enough! With the entrance fee or train ride fare you have access to all of the train yard and buildings. 

We mentioned yesterday that we saw a group of people from Germany here. There are about 30 of them, and they were swarming all over the place with their serious camera equipment. They have purchased some sort of deal where they have a photo shoot scheduled this afternoon and can ask for all kinds of shots with the trains. Obviously they have spent some of the bigger bucks and will be all over the trains.

The Germans telling the train crew what pictures they want.

We took a ride this morning on a train pulled by a coal powered steam engine. We didn't go a long distance, but went through town and up to a copper mining area, going through two tunnels long enough that you couldn't hold your breath through them, but wished you could.   Since the train was climbing a bit, they were really pouring on the power, and we were soon engulfed with black smoke and covered with little black specks of cinder.  We were sitting on the open flatbed car, not in one of the enclosed coach cars. We took the guided tour of the engine house when the ride was finished, and just really enjoyed the whole museum.  It is a working museum, and people are being trained for all aspects of keeping the trains going. Since you can't go out and purchase parts for 100 year old trains, they make most everything to repair them.

This is our train ready to roll.

Barney and Betty enjoying the ride.

What a fun ride!

An old truck in front of the station.

Barney and Betty talking to the telegraph
operator.

It was well past lunch time when we finished up at the museum, so went downtown to a city park and made sandwiches for a quick lunch, then headed east to Great Basin National Park

Look, we are going to eat out again!

. We stopped at the VC to get our stamp cancellations and watch the movie, then went on into the park to the Lehman Cave VC and got those stamps. It was too late to do the cave tour today, so we headed on out of the park and off across US50, the loneliest highway in America. Found a place to pull off and park overnight, but going along with the loneliest highway is the lack of wifi signal, so will get this posted when possible.