To Shiny Rails

The Friends of the Santa Maria Valley Railroad toured the Betteravia Branch of the railroad today. The line was constructed from Guadalupe in the late 1800s to serve the Union Sugar Mill in Betteravia. We visited three stations along the way – Iremel, Bragur, and Barsug – which were primarily beet dumps. We also visited the Green Canyon Trestle, did a quick run of the Betteravia townsite tour, and toured Caboose #210 at the Guadalupe Amtrak station. Check it all out here: http://friends-smvrr.org/140222.html

The 2013 Central Coast Railroad Festival is “in the bag”. It was a jammed pack weekend of activities, and I think I got to fewer venues than ever myself this year as there was so much happening. Anyway, photos are indexed here.

I’ve gotten quite lucky this year getting photos on covers for the Central Coast Railroad Festival. Journal Plus is number two, and there are more of my photos inside along with a detailed schedule for the festival (see pp. 30-31). The current issue of the magazine is here.

It all comes together as Matteo ends up on the cover of Central Coast Family magazine. Their October issue includes much information about the Central Coast Railroad Festival coming up October 10-13, 2013.

WITH PERMISSION OF THE PROPERTY OWNER, a small group of Friends enjoyed a very rare opportunity to freely explore Betteravia, once a thriving town of several hundred people, including the abandoned sugar mill that was the heart of the community. More…

After Dad’s and Vickie’s recent visit to California, including the SMVRR business excursion to Seattle, I took Dad home to Kansas City via Amtrak’s Southwest Chief. Predictably, the book I always pack was never cracked. We did nothing but gaze out the window and eat in the dining car (which also involved looking out the window!). Well, there was the occasional bio break, railroad talk, platform wanderings, but by and large it was something of a treasure hunt – what’s around the next bend?! If you want to see the country, the exceptional beauty, the bad, and the ugly, travel by train. You get a perspective like no other. On our second and last night, we were in the southeast corner of Colorado, heading for Kansas, watching a long storm line do its thing a fair distance away. It put on quite a lightning show for hours. And as if that weren’t enough, we saw a meteor (Perseid Meteor Shower) as the skies were perfectly clear near the train. The evening ended with a hilarious comedy routine performed by our car steward over the intercom describing the problem we were having with the toilets: “I’ve got some good news and some bad news…”. Nothing like a good belly laugh to end the day.

That’s not my photo above, but it’s remarkably similar to what we were seeing. I did not have my camera with me. Shocking, I know. The photo came from a royalty-free photo website I often use: http://www.sxc.hu/