Day 5 – North Platte to Colorado Springs

We started the day

Scout's Rest Ranch - North Platte, NE

with some more sightseeing in North Platte, NE. First stop was trinket shopping at Fort Cody Trading Post. This is kind of a South of the Border, Western style. They have anything and everything cowboy or Native American. Of course we had to buy some things for Joshua. Next we stopped at Scout’s Rest Ranch which was the home of William Cody, aka “Buffalo” Bill. Cody purchased the ranch in 1886 and it now includes an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn that was used for winter storage of Cody’s travelling Wild West show's livestock. The house was very interesting and Jeanne especially like the butler’s pantry that Cody’s wife forced him to build. Great storage capacity. It was her condition for moving in.

Bailey Yard

Our final stop in North Platte was to tour the Golden Spike Tower at Union Pacific's Bailey Yards and to view some train “humping”. The “humping” part was fascinating but requires some explanation. Bailey yard is the largest railroad yard in the world and it is located in the middle of Nebraska because it is the center of Union Pacific’s network of railroads. It is here where Union Pacific reassembles trains to go to their final destination. So, for example, a train of coal cars coming from the mines could be separated into twenty or so different trains going to different destinations.

Train Car "Humping"

The process they use is called “humping” as the cars are driven over a hump and then allowed to roll individually to their destination train. In the photo, the lead car is separated at the tower (peak of the hump) and then rolls downhill to one of about 30 different tracks of out-going trains.The whole operation is computer controlled. The computer controls the track switching and braking of the cars as they connect into the newly formed trains.

Final stop was an aborted attempt to tour the Coors Brewery in Golden, CO. We were expected for dinner in Colorado Springs but the line was so long that it was impossible to take the tour so we decided to take it on Thursday when we tour Denver.