2015.10.04 St. Louis, Arch, AAPRCO Banquet

Final day in St. Louis we had to go to the Gateway Arch. There was a lot of construction going on as they were getting ready to celebrate the 50th Anniversay. We took Liz and John from California with us. Got our tickets in the courthouse where the Dred Scott decision was made.

Inside the old courthouse which is now a historical building and ticket office for the Arch:

   Dred Scott monument.

Construction going on around the Arch:

Up at the top!

John and Liz:

 

Mark and Rick looking out:

And looking down at the Missouri River and toward the Courthouse and Construction:

And down one leg of the Arch....makes me a little dizzy.

Later that night at the AAPRCO Banquet, we got to see some more of the beautiful grand hall laser light show before they stopped everything with the hot air balloons on the ceiling.  Good food, good dance, grabbing the extra wine from the tables.

2015.10.03 St. Louis -Museum Tours & 2nd AAPRCO Car Party

Day 2 of AAPRCO included two tours. The first was to the St. Louis Museum of Transport. We took a bus out there with several other people and had a tour guide. They had a lot of train related stuff outside, also car collections under cover.

 Our tour guide with a special school bus train car.They had a huge train shed.

Next to the stop was the University of Missouri at St Louis library which had the Barriger Transportation Library where Nick, the archivist, told us about the collection. Here is Rick with John 'Jack" Barriger IV standing behind in the tan coat in the transportation library. His father was in a position to take lots of photos while on the job and collect a lot of railroad related materials.  They have a lot of the collection stored off site.

Here is Nick talking about the collections. Bill Martin in back with red tag, Dave Hoffman in blue hat looking away, Dave Rohr in tan hat to the right.

There was a John Audobon exhibit at the library as well, art work, and maps of the missouri river.

Then private car party #2.

Debbie Wolff.

Theme party on one car.

Bob and Darlene's car (Evelyn Brown passing through on left) Bob on right.

Rick in the car with a night sky ceiling

Looking in from the outside.

Afterward, we crashed the Dearing for a Maiden Voyge Reunion - most of the people that went on the trip from Washington DC to Chattanooga in 2012.  We had some "sweaty balls" for Nelson & Bordon from Liz and John and Charlie and Kathy made some Texas Milk Shakes. Peter and his sister were there, and Kevin Moore, Mark and Debbie and us.

AAPRCO Trip-Day 4, Part 2- Spencer to Asheville, NC-Tuesday September 25th

Continued.....The Ashville Trolleys picked everyone up to go to Antler Village on the Biltmore Estate which had a few shops and places to blow your money.  They had a wine tasting room in the old dairy barn and a gift shop.  My favorite wine was Biltmore Pinot Noir. I bought myself a 25% off sun visor hat in the sports shop and when I showed my military ID got an additional 10% off - forgot mine at home.  We were then transported to the Biltmore house -largest private home in America with 240 rooms,  finished in 1895.  It is still owned by the family but they don't live there.  Very opulent.  You were not allowed to take pictures inside but one of the tour guides said I could take pictures out the window which I did.  We were then ushered to the courtyard where we had a cocktail 15 minutes.  Larry and Linda Milsow and their guest Sherry were dressed to fit into the 1890s. We then went into the refurbished horse barn to eat a wonderful supper.  Most of our group sat in a stock pen together.  The dessert table had hot apple cobbler and nutty balls for Nelson.  They were good!  We returned back to the Dearing lounge, where, once again, a good time was had by all.  They were talking about all the nick names the other cars had and decided with Bill's Red Oak Beer, that the Dearing should be called the Beering.  Oh, and the discussion of how big Mark's head was, how the Berlin's car had a long hose dragging on the ground, Nelson's stop at the Shimmeron,etc.  We found a few YouTube videos that had already been put up of the consist-one showing the Mayor waving on the back of the train.  We decided to go to bed when Barry fell asleep waiting for his bench seat bed to be vacated!

AAPRCO Trip-Day 4-Part 1- Spencer to Asheville, NC-Tuesday September 25th

We left the North Carolina Transportation Museum and headed through the Blue Ridge Mountains on a steep and hairpin curve route.  There were lots of trees on either side and with the train being 1/2 mile long it was hard to see too many cars ahead of where we were on the curves.  There was one section where I looked down and could see the track below us that we had just been on - and also one point where I could see the first part of the train climbing ahead of us.  Since this was pretty slow, there were lots of opportunities to be on the platform and I took a few pictures from the vestibule.  I took a video of Rick on the platform - asked him what he thought.  He said, 'Honey, it doesn't get any better than this!"  Stephen Little, the Mayor of Marion had spent the night on board, sleeping on the bench seat which bumped Barry the steward into Kevin's room with Rob, our train guy, and Kevin to the top bunk in the Chef John's quarters.  We saw Andrews Geyser down below us that he talked about last night at the Bar-B-Que.  He got the locals in his town and other towns to come down to the crossings to greet the train as it came through with signs and cheers!!  As we were getting set up in Asheville we had a few rough bumps and our bouquets went flying and we had a wet chair and wet bench seat.  We finally pulled into Asheville and they split the train into two sections. Continued......

AAPRCO Trip, Day 2 - Washington, DC

Started the day located on phantom stealth track 30 ( not marked in station) breakfast on the Dearing while trying to get set up on the wireless and this new blog.

Debbie and Mark Wolff arrived on Amtrak met by their son John, wife Kim and grand kids Mitchell, Lincoln and Nolan from Baltimore. It was their 12th anniversary and yesterday Mark's birthday. We all ate at the Dubliner in Washington DC near Union Station.

Rick and I walked down to the mall for day two of the National Book Festival saw Eric Weiner, John Lewis and Steve Inskeep. Walked back to our car reception with our hosts and the other guests on our car. Kevin Moore gave us the the car safety talk and we enjoyed good food, wine, and company