Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Western Railway Museum visit


We visited the Western Railway Museum near Rio Vista, California, on Saturday.  The weather was very un-Californian.  It was overcast, windy, and it was spitting rain.  The museum has an extensive collection of trolleys that crisscrossed the Bay Area before World War II.  Two of the trolleys are actually operational.  We rode the two trolleys pictured above.  The one on the right is a streetcar and it offers visitors a 15 minute ride.  The interurban to the left offers a longer, 45 minute ride.


We took the shorter streetcar ride first.  These are some shots of the interior.








This old timer/volunteer/conductor was really cool.  He answered all of my dumb questions with a sincere smile.


At the halfway point, we had to reverse directions.  Here's our conductor switching the electric line.


Can you tell the museum is in the middle of nowhere?  It was a relaxing and pleasant ride.


We had some time between the trolleys so we visited the cars stored under the huge hangar.





The car below is from Melbourne.  While in service, it traveled over a million miles.



Semi-old school Muni streetcar.



We then hopped aboard the interurban for a 45 minute ride.  We were the last ones on and there were no seats left in the passenger department.  So the Mrs. and I sat in the luggage compartment on top of some vintage wooden boxes.  Que romantico!




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