Rail Festival 2010

We spent a good chunk of the day in Perris, CA at the Orange Empire Railway Museum. This weekend was their annual Rail Festival and there were plenty of things to see and do.

Our first ride of the day was on the old restored Pacific Red Car, very similar (or possibly one of the same ones) my wife's mother used to ride between her home in Highland Park and USC. We just rode it a short way over to Car Barn 4.

At the Car Barn Santa Fe 98 was open for tours. I shot some video of this locomotive in action back in 2008 during the Thomas the Tank Engine event.

It wasn't running today which is probably why they let me sit in the engineer's seat.

If you ever wondered what it looks like after a locomotive has run over you, here you area.  I took this from the pit where they work on the engines.  Not much room under there for somebody 6' 5".

Our second ride was behind Ventura County #2, the steam locomotive that was pulling one of the two trains on the main line.  

There's video below from that trip.  We were invited to ride in the private Soo Line business car at the end of the train - very cool.  The Mt. Rubidoux was one of only three cars like that were ever built and only two are still in existence.  Not just anybody could get in there (they must have liked my train shirt and Santa Fe hat).  This was the first time they've ever allowed passengers in the car.  Check out the video below.

Something new this year - handcar rides for those who want to do the work themselves.

And for those that wanted to actually run a working locomotive, Southern Pacific 3100 was running on a short siding track with tourists at the controls (for $10 for 10 minutes).  I rode in the cab on this locomotive at last year's Festival and shot some video which you can see here.

And here's a second video of some of the other things going on today: