Hello!
My wife and I recently drove from St. Paul, MN to Estes Park, CO to enjoy the Rocky Mountain scenery and hike around the mountains. I hadn't thought about the potential for some railfan fun along the way but there were some nice opportunities.
While plotting our driving route we decided that North Platte, Nebraska was as far as we cared to drive in one day and settled on that as our overnight stop on the way to Colorado. You'd think I might have been aware of the major railfan attraction in North Platte but the Golden Spike Tower was a complete surprise for me!
Golden Spike Tower is an eight story tall structure built for railfans along the Union Pacific's massive, eight miles long, Bailey Yard which apparently is the world's largest classification yard! The enclosed air conditioned viewing area at the top and the open air deck one floor below both provide fantastic vantage points for observing the yard and the large engine facilities. Action is non-stop with assembling trains, cars going over the two humps, and long through trains rolling by.
Here is Golden Spike Tower.
The spacious enclosed 8th floor deck has lots of windows, some seating, and several interesting railroad artifacts on display...
...such as this vintage yard control switchboard
...and this dining car china set my wife liked.
From the Golden Spike Tower/ Bailey Yard Website :
"Bailey Yard has 17 receiving and 16 departure tracks handling 14,000 rail cars every 24 hours. 3,000 cars are sorted daily in the yard’s eastward and westward yards, nicknamed “hump” yards. Using a mound cresting 34 feet for eastbound trains and 20 feet for those heading west, the hump yards allow four cars a minute to roll gently into any of 114 “bowl” tracks. Here they become part of trains headed for destinations in the East, West and Gulf Coasts of America, as well as the Canadian and Mexican borders. An average of 139 trains per day are largely comprised of raw and finished goods, such as automobiles, coal, grain, corn, sugar, chemicals, and steel along with consumer goods, including electronics, apparel and other retail products.
To keep America moving forward, the train operations and repair shops at Bailey Yard are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fueling and service center processes more than 8,500 locomotives each month, using technology like overhead cranes and elevated work bays to maintain fluid operations."
Some examples of the view:
The 7th floor open air deck is great on a sunny day.
The station-like entrance to the Tower includes a gift shop. The tent pavilions are for guided bus tours that actually venture into the yard.
After leaving North Platte we pressed on to Cheyenne, Wyoming. We could have taken a somewhat more direct route to Estes Park but chose to explore Cheyenne and use it as a convenient lunch stop. My wife had done some research into downtown Cheyenne restaurants and found The Albany, a great burger, sandwich, and salad place in an historic building downtown.
Another pleasant surprise was that The Albany is located right across the street from Cheyenne's Historic Depot and another large Union Pacific freight yard!
Looking at the website I see we missed a Narrow Gauge Model Railroad under construction on the second floor! We didn't notice any signs about it, however. Oh well. We hadn't planned to spend too much time in Cheyenne but it would have been nice to check out the layout!
The front of the depot.
A view of the depot from the track side.
This yard tower could be seen in the distance. We passed by it more closely while crossing a bridge over the yard to get into the downtown area.
While walking around the back of the depot we could hear and see a three unit consist idling with its train. It wasn't long before the lead engine's bell started ringing, alerting me to hit the video on my phone!
After lunch and a little walking around we were ready to head to Estes Park and its scenic beauty but we enjoyed these railroad side trips!
