Saturday was a long day overall, even though there was only 3-4 hours of actual driving done. I pulled off the highway around 3:00 in the afternoon and drove a couple of back roads over to Guadeloupe River State Park. They had plenty of spaces available for me to camp in, so it was easy to sign up for 3 nights and a couple of days to relax in.
    Once the trailer was unhooked and everything set up I took some time to get some late lunch before going out to explore the park some. It's a beautiful, and large park, but it doesn't seem to have any real outstanding features. Not that it has to of course, it does have the area down along the river and that is rather pretty, but mostly it seems that it is just a real good example of a 'Texas Hill Country' park. Mostly scrub and live oak, with lots of mesquite and brush, it seems ideal for many types of animals and birds, and indeed I have seem quite a few deer these past few days. But there wasn't much else out there to see so I spent the rest of the evening reading and working on a few photo's
    Yesterday I packed up the truck and headed into the town of San Antonio. The goal was to go in and visit the Alamo and the River Walk through town. The Alamo, or what is left of it, is right near the downtown area so it is very easy to find even with out GPS. I found a great place to park just a few blocks away, that cost a couple of bucks, and it was easy enough to walk over from there. Lot's and lots of history there at the Alamo. It was interesting to me that it was originally called the Mission San Antonio de Valero and it was founded in 1724. The name Alamo didn't come about until the early 1800's when the Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit there. They referred to the old mission as the Alamo, the Spanish word for 'Cottonwood", which one assumes grew around it.
  But the old mission is most famous for the battle that took place there on March 6, 1836 when nearly 200 Texas Independence Revolutionists were assaulted by a force of 5-6,000 Mexican troops under the command of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Killed that day were several famous volunteers including Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.
  This battle set the stage for later battles for Texas independence where the cry 'Remember the Alamo' was often shouted during the fight. There are still some of the original parts of Alamo left, but a lot of original site has been lost over the years and now is covered over with roads and high rise hotels.
   The River Walk is only a block or so away from the Alamo so it is an easy walk over to it. Just a canal system that rings a few blocks of downtown San Antonio, it has been built up around the whole length of it with small businesses and restaurants. Rather pretty to look at and walk along, it wasn't of that much interest to me as far as shopping is concerned, but I was hungry enough to pay attention to the restaurants that I passed by. I finally walked by a nice little place called the 'Casa de Rio' that had small tables right along the water and specialized in Mexican food. It also turned out to be the very first restaurant that opened along the river walk way back in the 50's when it wasn't much more than dirt banks and very few buildings. I had a basic platter which came with a chicken enchilada, tamale, chili con carna and rice and beans. Along with a couple of glasses of real ice tea and some live mariachi music, it was a very pleasant lunch for me.
    So about 5 hours of wandering around and then a quick stop at the grocery store on the way back to the trailer. I just relaxed last night and watched the old movie 'Men In Black I' on the computer. Tonight it is looking like I may end up watching the next one, MIB II.
    A quiet day today otherwise. Rather cloudy out all day and not all that warm for the day, just into the 50's for the most part. I came into town just to get on line for a longer period of time. I also needed to do some laundry and find a hardware store. The laundry was easy to find, and it didn't take long to get my two loads washed, dried and folded. I needed the hardware store just for a couple of bolts I wanted. A couple of days ago on of the torsion bars on my trailer hitch started to slip out and drag along behind the trailer. Not a good thing in so many ways. Looks like the little pin that helps hold it into its socket had worn a little on one side and was allowing it just enough play to slip out. So I found that a 1/4" dia bolt, 5/8ths inch long, seemed to fit pretty well. But I only had one on hand so I want to pick up a few more just in case.
    I'm off once again tomorrow morning. It has been nice having a couple of days just to hang out and relax. There are a few photo's posted below that I finally got cleaned up yesterday. They were taken about a week ago while I was still in California. I have to admit that they are not that good as far as clarity. I really should read my camera book or do some research on how to take good indoor pictures, because mine just don't seem to come out very well. Still, they seem to be good enough to show what I wanted to show, so they will have to do for right now.

California Railroad Museum in Sacramento Calif.

Nov 21, 2014

Right inside the front door, where you buy your ticket, is this scale model of a working 2-8-2 Mikado style steam locomotive. I'm not sure what the scale was but it always amazes me that someone can actually build something like this from scratch and even have it work like a real locomotive. Of course it took somewhere around 6,000 man hours of work to do it.

First thing you do at the museum is go in and watch a short 20 min. film about railroads and thier use in the state of California. The theatre is a smallish 3D stadium style layout and at the end of the film the curtain goes up and a whole wall of windows open out onto this locomotive and the setting it is staged in. It is very impressive.

The locomotive is the first engine used on the Central Pacific Railroad. It is named the 'Gov. Stanford' after one of the 4 major players in building the railroad who later became the Governor of California.  

The driving force behind the idea of the Trans Continental Railroad was a young Civil Engineer named Theodore D. Judah. He helped persuade a group of merchants to incorporate the Central Pacific Railroad in Sacramento. Four of these investors became famous as the "Big Four" of California business and politics. As Chief Engineer, Judah surveyed much of the route over the Sierra Nevada, but had a falling out with his partners not long after the start of track construction. He planned to buy out the others, but contracted yellow fever in Panama while on his way to New York to raise funds. He died in November 1863, less than a month after the locomotive Gov. Stanford arrived in Sacramento. That's him standing next to the Gov. Stanford. ( Taken from the California RR Museum web site)

They had a mock surveying camp set up to show what conditions would of been like trying to find a way through the mountains for the railroad. A few photo's they had posted showed some of the near impossible  places they had to survey in.

This was a short section of a Snow Shed they had constructed in the museum. Because of the steepness of the terrain and the amount of snow the Sierras got every winter, more than 30 miles of snow sheds were constructed for the trains to run through in relative safety.

The Gov. Standford was a forty ton wood burning 4-4-0 American style locomotive built in 1862. It was left in pieces after being built on the east coast and was freighted around Cape Horn on a sailing ship. Once it landed in San Francisco it was assembled and had its first run on March 25, 1864. 

A close up of the engineer in the cab of the locomotive.

Chief Civil Engineer Judah.

A view of some of the locomotive controls.

Once you have looked at everything in the first exhibit you walk through a short tunnel and into a wonderland of other locomotives and cars. This beautifully maintained locomotive looks almost like a toy with its shiny brass work and fresh paint. This one originally worked on the Virginian and Truckee RR.

This behemoth, one of 256 that the Southern Pacific RR bought, was one of the last Steam Locomotive designs built. With a wheel configuration of 2-8-8-2 it was often used in a series of 2 or 3 engines pulling in tandem in order to make it up the long, twisting grades through the mountains. Because of the length and number of tunnels and snow sheds and the sharpness of the curves, these engines were built with the cab at the front of the locomotive instead of back where it is usually located. This kept the engineer and crew from being asphyxiated while in the tunnels and allowed them to see what was going on ahead of them before they were up on it. This is the only 'Cab Forward' locomotive left from the Southern Pacific RR.

Like most locomotives of this configuration it is actually made up of two completely separate engines joined together. The driving wheels are joined with an articulated joint which allowed the body to swing out on tight  curves and still stay on the track. This is not a 'Mallet' style locomotive however because the steam is not first used in the high pressure cylinder system in the first engine and then a larger, low pressure cylinder system in the second before being vented. This locomotive simply uses two separate high pressure cylinders to drive the wheels.

Another beautiful steam locomotive.

brk*