On Saturday, September 16, the Museum hosted a train ride event to celebrate going Back to School! Volunteers Ron Roach, Maureen King, Dwight Maxey, Kendall Crouch, Colin Mellin, John McDowell and Paul Brown entertained about 70 guests with a short train ride in very pleasant weather, almost like Fall. We did see a bunch of children who seemed to be thrilled they were riding a train and not in the classroom! It was busy enough that I was only able to get a few pictures on a break between trips.

Please mark your Calendars for our next event, the Cemetery Express, on October 28, the Saturday before Halloween, and don’t forget we do three train ride events leading up to Christmas in the month of December. At this time, we don’t have an event scheduled for November.

– Paul

Enjoy a train ride on our red, white, and blue “Patriot” engine! This event is Saturday, September 16, from 11AM to 3PM behind the Pueblo Union Depot. Train ride tickets are $15 for a ride in the engine, or $10 for a ride in one of our three cabooses. Children under 3 ride 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 where the trains depart. Each train ride is approximately 20 minutes, so there will be multiple opportunities during the four-hour event to ride the trains.

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

For a list of all of our planned events in 2023, click here.

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On Saturday, September 9, a crew consisting of Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Reid Adams, and Paul Brown worked the entire day pulling weeds, some of which could be considered small trees! We concentrated on weeds that have grown along our main running track. A couple weeks back, we did some mowing and pulling to clear out another section of track. Today, everything had to be pulled out by hand due to the weeds being in the track bed and close to switch stands and such.

As the day progressed, the crew was hampered by high temperatures and the work slowed considerably towards the end. I have included two sets of before and after photos to show the work done.

– Paul

On Saturday, September 2, a small crew braved near record heat and humidity to do a bit of work at the Museum. Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin and Paul Brown replaced a tie in our main running track. As you can see in the accompanying pictures, we use our ties until they just about turn into toothpicks! It’s always satisfying when we can remove a totally rotted tie and replace it with a solid piece of wood! After this little bit of work was complete, we needed to retreat to the indoors to eat lunch and cool down.

After lunch, we started to work on removing a flat rear tire from our work truck, but we couldn’t remove the lug nuts with the equipment available. So we finished the day by removing a dead tree that conveniently fell over into the back of one of our pick-up trucks! It was a simple matter of driving the truck out to the dumpster and breaking it down with the Bobcat.

The crew left a bit early knowing that we had finished just a small portion of the many projects we have at the Museum.

– Paul

On Saturday, August 19, Dwight Maxey, Bryan Tong and Paul Brown spent the day mowing, trimming and pulling weeds. The rain we received in the late spring and early summer did us no favors and sprouted a near bumper crop on the Museum property. While fighting a few equipment problems, we were able to clear up a couple of areas with thick growth near our tracks. This work took the entire day to do.

I have included a few pictures to give you an idea of the scope of the issue.

– Paul

On Saturday, August 12, Dwight Maxey, Ron Roach, John McDowell, Colin Mellin, Tyler Seeley, Reid Adams, Chris Jagodzinski, and Paul Brown all worked hard to give our guests some nice train rides down by the Depot. Between riding Engine 102, one of our cabooses, or the little speeder car, we gave 114 people a ride and a smile! And we did this while getting on-and-off rain showers for about two thirds of our event time. Quite a few people really enjoyed getting to experience a ride on one of our speeders, something we haven’t offered in a few years. We might just have to do it again soon.

Despite being very busy giving people rides, I was able to take a few photos to share. I have included them here.

Remember, we have Museum work days nearly every Saturday, so think about coming out to help. We have plenty of projects that need attention.

– Paul

Enjoy a train ride with a twist! In addition to train rides on our usual “big train”, with our red, white, and blue “Patriot” engine, the Pueblo Railway Museum will also offer rides on our little speeder cars! This event is Saturday, August 12, from 9AM to 1PM behind the Pueblo Union Depot. Train ride tickets are $15 for a ride in the engine, $10 for a ride in one of our three cabooses, or $10 for a ride on our speeder car. Children under 3 ride 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 where the trains depart. Each train ride is approximately 20 minutes, so there will be multiple opportunities during the four-hour event to ride the trains.

Steel City Café will be catering this event, providing tasty food choices for our visitors. The food cost is extra and is not included in the train ticket price.

There is no admission fee to attend the event itself. Charges are only for the train rides, or for purchases from Steel City Café.”

On Saturday, August 5, volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Bryan Tong, Kendall Crouch, and Paul Brown got busy on several projects to get things ready for next week’s event. First, we had to get Engine 104 started, so we could use it to move Engine 103 and the Santa Fe caboose back, to make room to pull out a couple of our speeders. Next, we had to get the fuel system put back together on the Santa Fe speeder, and then juggle the all of the speeders around to get better access. The big orange Gang Car needed some attention too, so it can make some runs next week. We even had time to pick up some trash from our shop yard in between all the other tasks. There was enough trash to pretty much fill up a 30 yard open top container!

I have included a few pictures of today’s action so you can see what was done.

Remember next Saturday is our event, Train Rides at the Depot. Clear your calendar and come on down!

– Paul

Photos by Paul Brown and Kendall Crouch

On Saturday, July 29th, the Museum had volunteers Dwight Maxey, Colin Mellin, Bryan Tong, David Hunter and Paul Brown replacing a couple more ties in our main running track in the morning. During a previous inspection, this spot was marked for work, and it’s a good thing we did it, as the ties we pulled out were basically piles of sawdust! And, even though the ties we put in were used, the replacements were solid wood, and will help support the rails as we give visitors rides on the trains.

After a quick lunch break, Bryan went on weed patrol, mowing and pulling weeds along some of our tracks while Dwight, Colin, and Paul did some more work to our track speeders, to prepare them for possible use at a future event. We finished working a bit early, because the heat and humidity were rising as the day went on.

I have included pictures of the morning’s work on the track, because this is one of our most important chores, and we remember to take pictures!!

– Paul

On Saturday, July 22, Dwight Maxey and Paul Brown braved a warm and humid day to keep some projects advancing at the Museum. Despite the small crew size, we were able to get a number of things done. First thing in the morning, we headed out to identify ties we will be replacing, since we didn’t have enough volunteers to actually replace ties today. While marking the ties, we were able to pull a good number of weeds, and watch a few trains roll by on both the BNSF and UP! Before heading to lunch, we emptied all the trash cans in the platform area and with all the rain soaking the accumulated trash it made for an aromatic experience!!

We took a long lunch break to cool down before we started to investigate our Gang Car and what it would take to get it back in operation. After sitting for something like 4 years, we had to drain the fuel and do some minor repairs before starting the engine. The engine in this car is very old and has babbit rod bearings in the engine, which may need some work as there is a slight knock while running. We spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the shop for some additional project ideas.

At the very end of our work, we had a group of visitors swing by the shop. They were with the Inter-mountain Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. It’s always nice to have visitors who have as much interest in trains as we do! It’s too bad we couldn’t recruit them to volunteer with us!

– Paul