Raven's Roads
Living an interesting life: the travels and musings
of motorcycling author Linda R. Moore

Coming back from our Wine Country snarfari, we had spotted the Western Railway Museum on the map, and decided to pull in. The rain had cleared and we headed in without knowing anything about the place. A little old lady took our $10 admission, and we went forth to explore.

Click on each image to get a larger view.

   

The museum is all about electrical trains, and had been started almost 50 years previously by a handful of people who couldn’t bear to see a particular train destroyed. They had a vast cavern of a shed full of engines and carriages in various states of restoration, but already had a second shed that would be opened to the public sometime in 2008.

I was particularly struck by the detailing and decoration on these vehicles, ranging from an ornate rail for the train guard to arched, church-like windows. Each machine was an individual, not a mass-produced item.

The true attraction, though, was the train and street car rides. Two different street cars did a short run twice an hour, and then a third electric train, the kind of thing that would have been used in times of yore to get you from town to town, did a longer run on the hour. All this was included in, and well worth, the price of admission.

The street car rides were a history lesson, and included a stop to get a token. There were no signals back then, so the train had to physically stop before it entered a stretch of track which was shared by both directions, take a big wooden “key” called a token, and proceed. Basically, if another train came along and there was no token, it had to wait.

Then it was time to return and the driver removed the controls and set them up on the other side of the train!

The longer ride was just plain awesome. They had equipped several miles of tracks and were looking to do some more in the future. We even had to come to a full stop in front of a blind country lane and whistle, as there was no crossing guard. In the distance we saw a little white church that we’d been told was put together by the original settlers of this area. It used to take an entire day to get to and from a church, so they funded it by selling burial plots and lessened their commute considerably! The narrator told us that you still could get a plot there…but not for $50 ;)

   

We went through a chaparral landscape not much changed from how California used to be…apart from the gently spinning white windmills in the distance, of course.

I learned that the train could go up to 60 mph. It jerked and rattled so much at half that speed that I don’t think I would have liked that very much. The panels above were lined with period advertising, so nothing much has changed there. ;)

When we returned, we poked through the train shed and to my absolute delight I found a Blackpool tram. Blackpool is a gritty Lancashire town which puts up “illuminations” each year and decorates the trams which run up and down the sea front.

   

They Illuminations are an incredibly popular attraction, part of my childhood, and there, right there, was one of the open-topped ones for the brave and foolhardy. (I bet most of my readers have never been to Blackpool in the winter, but if you have you’d understand why I’ll say that.)

This 1934 “Boat” absolutely made my day and I was glad to find a postcard in the store.

   

The visit was worth every penny. Entirely run by volunteers who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable train buffs, the place is run by love and donations/the price of admission alone.

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