Railway Holiday to Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota & Nebraska - 18 July to 3 August 2010

Sunday 18 July.
Fly out from Manchester to New York JFK, then onto Chicago, then onto Denver.

Monday 19 July.
Shopping at Wal-Mart, King supers and Kohl's. Dinner in the evening at Lone Star Steak House

Tuesday 20 July.
Shopping at Caboose Models, the supermarket for model railroaders. Onto the Cherry Creek shopping mall, Tattered Cover book shop and visiting the Colorado Railway Museum shop in the afternoon.

Wednesday 21st July.
Train spotting at Colorado Springs then over night at the Motel there.

Thursday 22nd July.
We managed to get a train ride to the top of Pikes Peak, then we drove back to Denver.

Friday 23rd July.
Heading for Phippsburg via Grandby. Over the Berthoud Head Pass at 11,307 FT. to see the western end of the Moffatt Tunnel at Winter Park just as the Amtrak train comes through. 

Saturday 24th July.
Oak Creek for breakfast, and had a look at their mining Museum. Then we headed over Rabbit Ears Pass at 9,426 FT. and Muddy Pass at 8,772 FT. We then went on to Laramie, Wyoming, for an overnight stop.

Sunday 25 July.
Trains, trains, trains, dinner with Bob and Mary Catherine in Cheyenne. Back to Denver, to get train tickets for the two of us for the following day.

Monday 26 July.
Steam train ride behind the UP No. 844, from Denver to Cheyenne, then a quick tour round the Union Pacific Heritage Museum Roundhouse and workshops. Then we headed north to Douglas.

Tuesday 27 July.
Look around the Douglas County Museum and meet the Jackalope. On the road to Gillette, looking at trains and coal mines on the way.

Wednesday 28 July.
More coal trains on the way to Rapid City, South Dakota, seeing more trains on the way. In the afternoon we went to see the four President faces at Mt Rushmore, then on to the Crazy Horse Monument.

Thursday 29th July.
Take the 1880 train from Keystone to Hill City and back. Next we headed to Wall, the home of the shopping mall.

Friday 30th July.
Breakfast in Wall followed by a drive through the Badlands, off-roading in the 4x4, we get a puncture, Sharon, a local lady helped us to get the spare tire off the car and suggested a repair place in the next town, so that we could get going again.

Saturday 31st July.
Trains and trains, mainly BNSF routs. Dinner was at Grand Buffet (Chinese), Sydney, at about 3 PM. UP land trains next and we stopped in Kimball at night.

Sunday 1st August.
Travel east to the largest marshallings yard, the UP North Platte yard. We move into a different time zone, Central Time, 1 hour in advance, but as is we where only in this zone for the night, we kept to ‘Mountain’ time.  We visited the ‘Spike Tower’ to look over the marshallings yard.

Monday 2nd August.
Leave North Platte and head to Ogallala for breakfast, then more trains. We had an egg & bacon burger for lunch at Hillrose, on the way back to Denver, via the airport.

Tuesday 3rd August.
After breakfast we had a quick shopping session. We then went onto the airport at Denver, for journey home.
We leave Denver Int’l Airport over an hour late to Dallas Fort Worth. Then having missed our flight connection to London Heathrow and having to get on the next flight out another hour later. But we did finally manage to get our proper flight onto Manchester. What a fiasco!! Home at last.