On Saturday, May 18, the Museum ran our caboose train for no other reason than to just ride the train. We had great weather and a good group of guests who seemed to enjoy themselves. We even had free food to help stave off the munchies. Volunteers Ron Roach, Jackie Anzlovar, Ben Bevel, John McDowell, Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Kendall Crouch, Chris Pollard, Bruce Davis, Dannis Hudson, Abel Erber, Henry Falko, Reid Adams and Paul Brown made sure that everyone had a ticket to ride, a seat to ride on, and were able to enjoy a train ride, and maybe learn a bit about railroad history and our museum.

We had a pretty good turn out with nearly 100 guests taking a ride. We even had a few people express an interest in volunteering at the museum. We hope they find their way back in the future. Keep an eye on our Facebook page and the website for future train ride events. Next up will be June 15th for Fathers Day and then the 4th of July where The Patriot, Engine 102 really shows off!

I have included some pictures from today’s event, enjoy.

– Paul

The Pueblo Railway Museum will host its next public train ride event on Saturday, May 18. Train rides will be available from 10AM to 2PM behind the Pueblo Union Depot. Train ride tickets are $15 for a ride in the engine, and $10 for a ride in one of our three cabooses. Children under 2 ride the train free! Cash or check only, please. Train ride tickets can only be purchased during the event. Purchase your tickets at our Gift Shop, a converted caboose behind the Depot, near the passenger boarding area. Trains depart every 20 minutes, so there will be multiple opportunities during the event to ride the train.

There is no admission fee to attend the event itself. The charge is only for the train ride.

On Saturday, May 11, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Kendall Crouch, Bruce Davis, Chris Pollard, Gary Carter, Reid Adams and Paul Brown dodged rain showers while first working to clean up our caboose fleet to get them ready for next week’s train ride event. Kendall and Reid took on the bulk of work sweeping, vacuuming, wiping down surfaces, and even mopping the floors. Meanwhile, Bruce and Chris started working on the Hi-Rail truck to try to finish removing rear wheels and to remove a hydraulic cylinder from the knuckle boom crane on the rear of the truck. This has been an ongoing battle with rusted lugs and bolts. One end of the crane cylinder was easy work, but the other end had bolts that just weren’t budging, so while those were soaked with penetrating oil, the gang turned to the wheel lugs.

Chris had an idea to weld an old lug nut to the stuck stud, and that’s when Gary showed up with his welder to help out. With help from the whole crew, and a bit of struggling, those stubborn lug nuts finally came loose and were removed. Now we can get the tires repaired and remounted on the truck so we can use it. Then we spent a little more time working on the crane cylinder and were able to get the two bolts out so the cylinder can now be taken to shop and repaired. We finished this work just as the rain started to come down steady.

The volunteers were also able to walk the track around the sharp curve leading into the shop area, to scope out a possible future project. Stay tuned for that one! All in all, a great day with a wide variety of work and a couple of successes in moving a couple of projects forward.

Here are a few photos of today’s work.

– Paul

On Saturday, May 4, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Kendall Crouch, Chris Pollard, Bruce Davis, Henry Falko, Abel Erber, Dannis Hudson and Paul Brown were dealt a great weather hand, and good luck being able to get The Patriot, Engine 102, out of the shop and given her annual washing. The crew worked to fire up Engine 104 so it could be used to pull Engine 102 out of the shop for later switching. While waiting for Engine 104 to warm up, Kendall, Chris, Bruce and Colin did some more work to remove the inner lug nuts off our Hi-Rail truck rear wheel. They were successful in loosening all but two of the lugs which are being very stubborn! They also did some shop cleaning, and cleaned up an oil leak where the Patriot spent the winter.

Once Engine 102 was outside, the cleaning began, lasting until about 3:00pm. Locomotives have a lot of surface area on all the sheet metal body, so it takes some time and effort to get one cleaned. Our younger members learned a thing or two about hard work, and that it takes more than a few squirts of water from the hose to do this job! I think our more mature volunteers showed a thing or two about working hard!!

After The Patriot was all cleaned up, it was time to start her and make sure systems were ready for the Summer operating season. She started right up, and we were able to run her around a bit at the end of the day. A great day with good volunteers accomplishing a bunch of work that needed to get done!

I have included some photos of today’s work. Also included are some photos from volunteer Bruce Davis, who continues to do valuable cleanup work around the museum grounds!

– Paul

Photos by Paul Brown and Bruce Davis

On Saturday, April 20, Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Bruce Davis, Chris Pollard, Polly Cotton, Dannis Hudson, Henry Falko, Abel Erber and Paul Brown learned how to change plans on the fly! Our original goal was to work on our Hi-Rail truck and remove the rear wheels to check on a flat tire. Well, we had all the tools ready, the air compressor fired up and supplying air for the impact wrench, and found out the socket we have is a 12 point and it slipped on the lug nut! Just more of the PRF luck hard at work!

So, change of plans goes into action. Dannis, Henry and Abel were reassigned to spike patrol out on our main running track. They grabbed spike mauls and spent some quality time checking and driving down loose spikes. This is a chore that needs to get done, so it was worth their effort.

Bruce, Chris and Polly jumped on the most important work at the Museum…cleaning up weeds! While this was happening, Dwight and Paul found some Elm tree sprouts and were digging those out. The team got near our fence and found an area of the old fence that needed repaired, so the crew transitioned to that task. While this was happening, Colin was checking some tool stores for a proper wheel lug socket, with no luck. He returned and began doing some equipment maintenance, and assisting with the fence. The fence repair ran well into the afternoon, and resulted in a late lunch break.

After lunch, the crew did some clean up work and looked at a track issue that has developed at the back door to the shop. More on that in the future.

I have included a few pictures of the work that was accomplished today.

– Paul

On Saturday, April 13, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Kendall Crouch, Bruce Davis, Chris Pollard, Colin Mellin, Abel Erber and Paul Brown braved the great weather and accomplished a lot of little tasks. Bruce, Kendall and Abel worked on the D&RGW caboose windows and interior trim, to get things buttoned up on that project. They also worked on installing a crossing sign on our Wig Wag signal. Meanwhile, Chris and Dwight worked on some upgrades to our battery charger cables. After a quick lunch, the entire crew helped work on the Wig Wag signal operations, with some new wires being installed to the magnets inside, and adjusting the bell. There was also some more clean up work done around the yard.

I have included a few pictures of the action today, along with some pictures of some yard cleanup work performed by Bruce Davis on Thursday the 11th. Keep an eye out for more Museum activity in the coming months as we’ll have some larger projects get started, and of course our event schedule grows larger in summer months.

– Paul

Photos by Paul Brown and Bruce Davis

On Saturday, April 6, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Kendall Crouch, Bruce Davis, Chris Pollard and Paul Brown braved high winds strong enough to blow your hard hat clean off your head and down the street about a block!! Luckily, our planned work was mostly indoors, but we were not completely spared. Our first work involved cleaning the back area of our shop where we had a slight oil spill from storing used oil in skimpy plastic containers. In addition to cleaning the oil, we cleaned up a lot more junk, dirt and dust from the area, and stuffed the already 3/4 full 3 yd dumpster we have on site. Yes, a little Spring cleaning happened!

After a lunch break, we split up and tackled a couple different projects. Bruce, Kendall and Colin worked to figure out the cupola window problem in our Rio Grande caboose. Though this car looks pretty good, it is old, and thus has problems with moving parts and such. After about an hour of effort, they had the windows operating better, but found even more issues that will need a little attention in the near future. Chris and Dwight did some work to the wiring for a set of connectors on our locomotive battery charger to improve the hook-ups for the jump batteries on the ground. Paul was spotted walking over to the Depot display area to find other problems that will need attention in the future.

Except for the hurricane force winds, we had a productive day.

– Paul

Photos by Paul Brown and Chris Pollard

On Saturday, March 30, volunteers Ron Roach, John McDowell, Jackie Anzlovar, Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Kendall Crouch, Bruce Davis, Chris Pollard, Dannis Hudson, Bryan Tong and Paul Brown were surprised by the number of guests that found their way to our train rides despite the road closure at Victoria and B Street! We had better than 150 guests who took a ride on our train and even got to see the elusive Easter Bunny. The weather was great, BNSF was running plenty of trains, and everyone was enjoying themselves.

I was able to catch a few pictures of today’s activities despite that we were hopping around quite a bit!

– Paul

The Pueblo Railway Museum is excited to kick off our 2024 train ride season with our Easter Bunny Express train rides on Saturday, March 30. Train rides will be available from 11AM to 3PM behind the Pueblo Union Depot. Train ride tickets are $15 for a ride in the engine, and $10 for a ride in one of the cabooses. Children under 2 ride the train free! Cash or check only, please. Train ride tickets can only be purchased during the event. Purchase your tickets at our Gift Shop, a converted caboose behind the Depot, near the passenger boarding area. Trains depart every 20 minutes, including loading and unloading time, so the train ride itself is about 10-15 minutes.

Our Easter-themed “Bunny Hutch” will be open for viewing, and we will have a special circus train on display, both free of charge.

There is no admission fee to attend the event itself. The charge is only for the train ride.

The latest event schedule can be found on our Events Page. To receive updates about our upcoming events, follow our blog. Enter your email address on the bottom of this webpage, and click the “follow” button.