We decided to take the steam train for it’s 20 mile round trip journey between Hill City to Keystone and back. The train was built to service the small mines between the two towns, bringing people and supplies and removing ore, taking it back to the main line in Hill City for transport out. We lucked out and happened to buy tickets on a pretty cool day. There are 3 steam engines in use in the USA that are similar, 2x6x6x2 (2 pony wheels, 6 drivers, 6 drivers, 2 pony wheels) with some other technical terms š This company has two of them and this was the first time they’ve ever run them together. The passenger cars came from all over, but were refurbished using period colors, stained glass, and 14 different kinds of woods, to keep them as period-correct as they could. There were train enthusiasts everywhere with special photo ops, people following the train and setting up at all of the 20 road crossings, buzz about the editor of Trains magazine being there, and a special event following the trip (we skipped the event). Because of the extra activities, the normal one hour, one way trip took us 2 hours on the way to Keystone, limiting our “layover”, so we were glad that we spent some time in the town the day before. I can’t figure out how to make video compatible with this site, so I can’t share the whistle sound, which was very cool. Also, we learned about the signal, the whistle sounds 2 long – 1 short – 1 long when signaling right-of-way as they come to a road crossing. This is Morse code for “Q”, taken from when the Queen of England traveled by steamship, the steamship blew the same code to signal that the Queen was on board and they have the right-of-way. Along the rails we saw old Morse code poles, that carried the wires, some deer, and old mining buildings. We ended the day with a burger at the Bumping Buffalo. Britt had a good day too, she got a hair cut/color.
Jim and Sherry's RV Life 