Light Railfanning in Vegas

For the adventurous there are a few railfanning opportunities in the greater Las Vegas area. If you have the usual gear with you (I did not), you can find great sights out in the hot, dry desert. Well, since I'm a pale Mainer without my good camera, scanner or 4X4, I stayed with the civilized stuff. I was here for another national debate tournament, so railfanning was secondary unfortunately.

My "team" and I stayed at the Stratosphere Hotel which features the tallest building west of the Mississippi. Since guests are able to go to the top for free, we had to go. From there you can see almost the entire UP main through town. I was treated to some power backing onto a double stack right below us. As I traced the line through town I saw one of the RBB&B Circus trains parked downtown. It happened to be in town for the week. While these shots are well below par, they are from a unique perspective.

Another feature of Vegas is the Monorail. While some of us could care less, some of us find them interesting. I just love those huge switches for diverting the trains. It's like a giant model railroad, if you get past the monorail part, since there are no engineers or conductors on board the 4 car trains. It's a really cool ride anyway, if a bit bumpier than I would have guessed. Very clean and modern.














You know I had to take the shot at Hooters for Skull. The shop end of the line is from the Stratosphere tower.





Leaving town a bit, I headed down to Boulder City for the southern branch of the Nevada State Railroad Museum. Here the Nevada Southern Railway, staffed by volunteers, runs a train on the Boulder branch and informs you of the history of the line which is dominated by the Hoover Dam. While the museum has a small collection, it is easily accessible and mostly shaded from the sun. The ride is mercifully air-conditioned and only about 30-40 minutes, but you get a close up of the desert and some good narration. You'll see from the photo below why I made the slight detour to the museum. Being a big fan of GP30's was only one reason. This is the unit responsible for UP's steamer 844 being renumbered to 8444, plus I saw it in my youth on the Fort Collins local out of LaSalle, CO. I thought the flag was a nice touch. No obstructions to knock it over. For those of you who saw my previous photo of a UP caboose, the caboose on the tail end once featured the same slogan "Go Big Train" before getting the museum's paint scheme. (844 allowed me to update the Wikipedia entries for the museum and preserved GP30's, neither of which acknowledged the status of the unit)

Vegas was a nice place to visit, and potentially a nice piece of a greater western railfan adventure in the future. BC