autumn

autumn
spearfish creek - south dakota

16 April 2005

trains and tracks

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we expected to find something similar to the website....but we only could see bits and pieces of the yard and the engines and cars. we stopped at the first thing that looked like an office and asked where the viewing stand was.... they all laughed .... said it hadn't been built .. in a politcal battle about who was going to pay and who was going to benefit. so what we found was the following.




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well you can see that you can't see too much from here. but we were able to see the little hill they created to push cars up and then let coast down into the classification yard. one by one and two by two the cars slowly pick up speed until they are somehow slowed down with much screeching and sent onto one of the many trains that are being built. they just sort of ghostly glide down the tracks. none of the ones we watch jammed into a car so i assume an engine has to come along and crunch them all together.

we finally found an overpass for cars and people and got out and walked to the top to take some pictures from above. still couldn't see a lot, but could see more. unfortunately my digital camera was full, but took some with my 35 mm. supposedly the yard is big enough to hold 3800 football fields. i couldn't prove that from what i saw though. glad i stopped by though.

we also stopped at buffalo bill's ranch. great house... could use a little work on the hall wallpaper...doesn't look authentic.... looks like kitchen stick on shelf paper. but i could be wrong. the horse barn was great. lots of harnesses, saddles, and great pictures. got to walk up to the hay loft.

i wanted to see the famous canteen of ww2 but it has been recreated in a museum.. i thought it was the original... oh well...

it was still a fun trip with friends :)

also on the way stopped at a neat little resturant. serves taco bell and pizza hut stuff. looks ordinary from the outside but decorated western style inside.. they did a great job. it is just off i80 at gothenburg and worth a stop.


2 comments:

Unknown said...

that's pretty funny that they haven't built the viewing platform because of arguements.
i'm glad you had a fun time though! sounds like a good trip.

k2h said...

I like the viewing platform stuck in a political battle. how ironic. the last the people at the little office could have done was let you in and show you how they map out trains to be assembled, or how they keep track of what cars are where and what goes where. it would have been kind of interesting to see all of their filing cabinets, or did they have electricity to the place? =)