Carson City for Trains

With our grandson, who loves all things transportation, we spent a delightful morning at the exceptional Nevada State Railroad Museum.

This museum is a cultural resource dedicated to educating visitors and the community about Nevada railroad history. Its mission is accomplished through the collection, preservation and interpretation on significant locomotives, rolling stock, artifacts, photographs and memorabilia directly related to railroads and railroading in the Silver State.

In addition to static exhibits, select pieces of equipment in the collection are restored and operated throughout the year to demonstrate steam and early gasoline technology and provide visitors with a first-hand experience with railroad history through the sights, sounds and sensations of a train ride. Unfortunately, we didn't see any machines in motion, but we gathered the running schedule and vowed to return.

The varied exhibits had something for everyone.

We all agreed that the 1910 McKeen Motor Car was our favorite.

One of Nevada’s most significant historic treasures is now the nation’s newest historic landmark. This McKeen motor car is the nation’s only survivor of its kind that is able to move under its own power. Approximately 160 McKeen motor cars were built from 1905 to 1920. Nevada’s example of the McKeen motor car served on the famed Virginia and Truckee Railway after the turn of the 20th century. Once retired in 1945, the vehicle was converted into restaurant and then retail space in Carson City. In 1995, it was donated to the museum, where staff spent 14 years restoring the vehicle. This is the one in which we want to ride!

Okay, this steam locomotive Glenbrook was gorgeous. It is a narrow gauge 2-6-0 freight locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia in 1875. It is one of the few surviving relics of the extensive lumbering activity around Lake Tahoe that supported the Comstock from the 1870s through the end of the 19th Century. For nearly 25 years it pulled trainloads of cut timbers and cordwood from Glenbrook sawmills to Spooner Summit, from which point a flume carried the wood products down to the Virginia & Truckee Railroad at Carson City. So dang cool.

One of the most intriguing items was the Virginia & Truckee Railroad's Track Bicycle.

This four-wheel track bicycle, or pedicycle, was manufactured by the Light Inspection Car Company of Hagerstown, Indiana. It was used for many years by V&T employee Enrico Guiffra and is typical of the light track vehicles used by railroad maintenance workers and officials in the early part of the 20th century.

In addition to its regular use on the V&T, Clara Guiffra (Mrs. Enrico Guiffra) also used it. When the family lived at Scales (near American Flat) Mrs. Guiffra and baby Albert, safely sitting in the track bike's wire basket, pedaled up the long grade to Gold Hill for groceries and to pick up mail and packages.