John and I took a road trip from the Silicon Valley to Reno and Carson City Nevada a week ago. I presented the “Story of Western Pacific Caboose 668” to the annual Western Pacific Railroad Historical Conference in Reno, Nevada. The convention is put on by the Feather River Rail Society. I was the only woman speaker! While in Reno, we toured Jim Petro’s remarkable model train layout – Jim is a master railroad modeler and scenery builder. His layout runs on the JMRI software that John helped to create – and uses John’s DCC Brakeman as well. We also were able to visit Union Pacific’s UP1983 locomotive in the old Western Pacific colors that was brought to Reno for the convention.
On the drive home, we looped through Carson City, Nevada, to visit the WP657 caboose (sister to our own WP668). WP657 was moved to the Nevada State Railroad Museum from the Ponderosa Ranch. The inside of WP657 is intact. We enjoyed our special tour, seeing all of the original furniture, cabinets, and fittings that are missing from WP668. We came back to California over Carson Pass in the snow and fog, and saw the very-full Carson River dumping its snow melt.
If you want to receive Katysblog posts by email, please sign up using the Sign Me Up! button (upper right).
Images Copyright 2017 by Katy Dickinson
KatysBlog 