To Shiny Rails

I submitted some photos to the contest that the Friends of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad is running. The photo contest details are here. I could only submit one photo in each of three categories: SMVRR Past, SMVRR Present, and UPRR Manifest serving SMVRR. The photos I downselected from which to choose for my final submission are here. Can you guess which three I submitted? Below is one of the 17 photos in the gallery.

The Central Coast Railroad Festival is taking shape! The return-from-COVID Festival is slated for October 1-3, 2021 with some stuff before and after. Check out the Full 2021 CCRRF Schedule.

The same Rocky Mountaineer that I took with Robob and Papa Bill many moons ago across the Canadian Rockies (pics from that 2008 trip are below and here) has launched a new excursion across the Colorado Rockies! It’s expensive ($1100 to $1650 per person one-way), but probably well worth it, like the Canadian trip. Their web page on this new trip is here.

I’ve been quite involved with the Central Coast Railroad Festival ever since its inception in 2009, mostly as webmaster and organizer, including chairing the event this year for the second time. But this year for the first time I sponsored something – the train trip tickets for the kids’ coloring contest. And don’t forget the SLO-SB Rail Guide for that trip that I created under the auspices of the Friends of the SMVRR some years ago. I needed a logo to put on the Sponsor page, so I modified this old favorite photo:

We literally stumbled onto the west entrance to Moffat Tunnel during our little getaway to Winter Park, CO. Turns out, the portal is right next to the Winter Park Resort. I also got a chance to photograph the Fraser-Winter Park rail station, but alas no trains came by while there. And last, but not least, we visited the Moffat Road Railroad Museum in Granby, CO. All the pics are here.