Today was a weird day. We were scheduled to have Bruce drive a high rail, in this case a converted 1957 Pontiac station wagon. Without telling Bruce, they moved his time from 9 am to 1 pm. We needed to be on the road by noon. To address the SNAFU, they gratiously placed us on a train ride at 9:30 and we got to sit in the locomotive cab with the engineer and his assistant. We were in a ALCO diesel and had a very interesting conversation with them. While we were on the train trip, our Tesla was charging at the NNRY (Nevada Northern Railway) museum's RV connector.
When be got back from the train ride, there was a shop tour. They have an amazing amount of equipment including 3 steam locomotives, 3 diesels, and lots of other cars. Pictures will follow when we're not so tired.
We had enough charge to get the 124 miles to the supercharger at Wells, which is on Interstate 80. From there we planned to travel to Twin Falls, Boise, and spend the night in Ontario, Oregon. When looking for a hotel in Ontario, we noticed that the supercharger in Hines, OR, was temporarily closed. It would be absolutely necessary for us to get home from Ontario.
We felt that if it is even occasionally unavailable, it was too risky to go that way. Since we were at Interstate 80, we decided to go back to Reno, then tomorrow we will drive home I80 to I5.
Here is the route we took.
The Pontiac that Bruce was going to drive was locked away in the "bus shed". Dick was able to snap a reasonable picture of it through the window.
The locomotive on our train was an early Alco diesel. The steam engines are only run on weekends. We got to ride in the cab with the engineer and his assistant.
Here is the engine attached to the train. Note that it is attached to the passenger car and the cab is forward.
This is Henry, driving the engine.
This is the view out the from of the engine. Most passengers don't get a chance to see this.
This is the train returning to the station. Note that the engine is now attached to the caboose, and the cab is on the back of the engine.
Click here for more pictures from the train trip.
At the end of the day we had travelled 488 miles for a current total of 4098.
