It’s day three of the great western trek.
There are many displays and you wear a headphone to get a narrative as you go through the exhibits.
At the window overlooking I-80 passing underneath the arch, they have a radar gun that records the speed of the passing vehicles. Cars are typically around 80 mph and trucks 65 to 70 mph. We have been traveling at about 65 mph and rarely have to pass anyone.
This is the arch from the freeway. It looks like the Oasis rest stops around Chicago. When I mentioned that, the people there had never seen the Chicago facilities.
An hour farther west, we went into North Platte and found the Bailey Railroad Yard. This is the largest rail yard in the world. There are about 150 trains that enter this facility every day. They process 10,000 rail cars a day. The observation tower is the Golden Spike Tower.
I don’t remember the dimensions, but it’s something like 1 mile across and 5 miles long. I couldn’t get my panorama function to get the whole thing. This shot is about half the yard.
Looking to the west…
…and looking to the east.
The
single rail car that is in the background just to the left of the tall pole, and
looks tipped left to right, is a car that is exiting the “hump”. This is where the cars are separated and sent
down to any one of several tracks to connect to its proper outbound train. It is all an automated process.
We
had plans to end up near Denver today, but didn’t make it. Instead, we’re parked at Cabela’s campground
in Sidney, Nebraska.
Tomorrow is a bit of a cleanup tour of the NW corner of
Nebraska and the Oregon Trail before heading south into Colorado.
This mountain time zone isn’t very agreeable to
my biological clock. It’s like 8:00 pm
and I’m spent.
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