Check it out – Fan Frank Carroll sent me some neat info to share…that Boulder City now has a scale, live steam locomotive that you can go watch (and possibly ride) this Saturday, February 16th.
The Fans of Nevada Southern Railroad (and the wonderful people over at the railroad museum) now have a scale rails group of Live Steamers. These are REAL live steam locomotives, built to scale and are representative of the steam engines that roamed the rails of the US. The engines burn alcohol, propane or other fuels to heat the water in the boiler which makes the steam, which, in turn pushes the cylinders to make the engines move.
The project has approximately 2,200’ of track (7.5” gauge) and several buildings, including a grain elevator, a couple of bridges, and a tunnel. They had it running for rides during Santa Train weekend and I have to say – it was pretty neat!
Click here to view a web page that FNSR has a built with some photos of the project coming together and if you want to watch a video of the train going around the track, there is one below — but wait until 55 seconds into the slideshow, which is when it turns to video.
The FNSR live steamers run on the 3rd Saturday of the month and that’s coming up this weekend. It is located near the Nevada State Railroad Museum – 600 Yucca Street, Boulder City, Nevada 89005. For more info, you can call 702-486-5933 or email them at LiveSteam@NevadaSouthern.com.