OK, if you are going to know me, you are going to have to put up with a certain amount of interchange regarding railroads and model trains. Kathie and I are visiting Travis in Colorado for a couple of weeks, including Thanksgiving. On Friday, we drove to Golden to visit the Colorado Railroad Museum and also to see Sandy's parents, who live nearby. (Duh! I forgot to take pictures while we were with them. We were so absorbed in conversation and in seeing Dick and Ruth's fine collections of railroad memorabilia, that I simply overlooked the opportunity!)
At the museum, we saw a first-rate HO layout which had incredible detail. Here are a couple of photos of portions of it. I found the swimming scene near the trestle quite amusing. Note the legs of the person who has just dived in as well as the person diving from the trestle. I don't suppose my eventual layout modeling will ever be this good.
The museum has protected lots of rolling stock and locomotives from roads that operated in Colorado, including the Rio Grande Southern. Many have been nicely restored, and there is an operating shop and turntable on the grounds that supports the volunteers who refurbish these treasures.
One of the things I most wanted to see was the collection of unusual Galloping Goose engines that operated on the Rio Grande Southern for a time. There is quite a good article in the archives of the Denver Post that you can find by clicking here, if you want to learn about them. They were an unusual creation based on a conventional automotive chassis that allowed for significantly reduced operating cost for passengers and mail delivery contracting. The idea helped the road continue to operate in the face of serious financial problems. But of course, the "locomotives" were very unusual and sounded so as well. They tended to wobble down the tracks, which led to their Galloping Goose nickname. Only seven were ever built. I got to see two of them. Turns out that I have an operating model of one of them in my own model train collection. I learned this past summer that a friend's grandfather was one of the designers and builders of these fascinating machines.
Switching gears now! How about those Hawks!? Yesterday, Travis, Kathie and I went to a local bar in Fort Collins that was hosting the local I-Club gathering of Iowa fans to watch the Iowa-Purdue football game. That was really fun, especially with the win. The Hawks are 11-0 now and, with Michigan State defeating Ohio State later yesterday, may climb into the top four current candidates for the national championship playoff games. However, Nebraska still lies in the way of a perfect regular season. So, we will focus on that game for now, one we may be able to see again together with local Iowa fans in the Fort Collins area next Friday.
One more thing. The local I-Club sells T-shirts that say "Iowa Fans with Altitude." Of course we had to acquire some of those!
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