Training Day

Let’s face it, there are a lot of miles of roads, highways and byways here in the Carson area. Pick just about anyplace you want to go, and there are at least two or three different routes that’ll get you there. Some are longer drives than others, but the fun is in the journey, not the destination, right? For example, if you want to pop on up to the lake from Carson City, you could swing south through Hope Valley and come in via Meyers or cut up into the hills a little sooner and go over Kingsbury to hit Stateline. Or shoot up Highway 50 to Spooner Summit. Or trek up Washoe Valley and take Mount Rose Highway. Or head even farther north, jump on the interstate and cut back up into the basin by way of Truckee and Tahoe City. And that doesn’t even exhaust all the options. The same principle applies to Virginia City. Even just heading up the hill from Carson, you’ve got the option of straight and steep up 342 through Gold Hill or zig-zaggy on 341. Or come at it from farther out on Highway 50 past Dayton and you can use Six Mile Canyon Road. Or come in from the north up Gieger Grade and past the highlands. Photo at left: Flickr, Ken Lund.

The point is, around here, we drive. We drive a lot. And it’s easy to forget just how much the railroads and trains figured into the travel plans for folk who lived here in centuries gone by. Those railroad tracks with their old-timey locomotives were Carson City’s lifelines to the rest of the world off to the east and the west, but they also provided a means of travel within this corner of the state to and from Carson, Reno and VC. For a glimpse into life on the rails, check out the Nevada State Railroad Museum at 2180 S. Carson Street. The museum is back open for business, with standard pandemic protocols in place, such as a requirement for masks and social distancing as well as no food, family groups having to stay together, a cap on the number of people inside at any given time and a prescribed flow of foot traffic as indicated by signage – pretty much all the normal sorts of regulations you would expect. The museum is open Friday through Monday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closed Tuesday through Thursday. Photo at right: Facebook, Nevada State Railroad Museum, Carson City.

And if you’re a history buff, this weekend is a great time to mash up Nevada’s railroading history with Nevada’s sufferage history, because on Saturday, August 15, the museum teams up with the Nevada Women’s History Project. In addition to exhibits with suffrage memorabilia, a period dress contest, vendors and booths, there’s the opportunity to ride the V&T with the historic train cars and engine that carried suffragists into Carson City in 1916 to meet with Governor Boyle, and then also transported suffragists from Reno to Carson in 1920 to participate in his signing of the 19^th Amendment. Complete information, including ticket info, is available at the museum website.

In normal times, railroading enthusiasts could also catch a ride on daily round-trip rides on the V&T from Carson City’s Eastgate Depot on up to Virginia City and back again. But, of course, these aren’t normal times, and those train rides are on hold until at least 2021. On the other hand, they’ve been replaced with Carson Canyon Railbike Tours. It’s a lot like those old movies where the hero had to pump the handcar, but in this case, you pedal your way on a route that takes you along the Carson River to Eureka Mill and the Halfway House Stage Stop. The railbike tours are available Tuesday through Sunday with slots at 8 a.m., 10 a.m., 12 noon and 2 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday with 6 p.m. evening rides. Complete info is at the V&T Commission website. Photo at left, Facebook, V&T Railway - Carson City.