Day 69 - Sunday, August 1
Yesterday was a bad day - one nights sleep and maybe the best chili ever….all engines firing at 100% today. Felt great from start to finish and my partner Lucky was in tandem with me running the first 18 miles on the Lincoln Highway step for step feeling great as well.
Chris’s full gallery is live on the site under “Chris’s Pix” if interested you can also copy and paste this url: https://www.davidgreen.run/gallery-5-1
Elevation gain another 300 feet and we are at about 3,100’ now and climbing by the day. I can’t believe we are closing in on 1,800 miles and on the back side of this trip. And, we just hit mountain time so we gained an hour!
There were so many great images today I will let them tell the story.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Cheers,
David.
We stayed at Lincoln Hwy RV Park on the far side of North Platte which also backed up to Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard. We learned that it is the largest railroad classification yard in the world and was named in honor of former Union Pacific President Edd H. Bailey.
This massive yard covers 2,850 acres, reaching a total length of eight miles, well beyond the borders of North Platte, a community of 25,000 citizens. Put end-to-end, Bailey Yard’s 315 miles of track would reach from North Platte in western Nebraska east past Omaha on the Iowa border along the Missouri River.
Every 24 hours, Bailey Yard handles 10,000 railroad cars. Of those, 3,000 are sorted daily in the yard’s eastward and Golden Spike Tower overlooking Bailey Yard’s westward yards, nicknamed “hump” yards. Using a mound cresting 34 feet for eastbound trains and 20.1 feet for those heading west, these two hump yards allow four cars a minute to roll gently into any of 114 “bowl” tracks where they become part of trains headed for dozens of destinations. Together, these two yards have 18 receiving and 16 departure tracks.
Train operations and repair shops at Bailey Yard are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fueling and service center processes more than 9,000 locomotives each month, using technology like overhead cranes and elevated work bays to maintain fluid operations.
We had the pleasure of witnessing and hearing this all night long!
This is not the dawn but the Bailey rail yard at 5am - pitch black night.
Lucky is happy to be out!
One of the smaller cows has a moment as the top cow on the hill…
But sadly this is a massive feed lot where thousands of cows are fed and there is a station in the background where trains take and bring fresh ones.
Pre-sunrise colors off Lincoln Highway
The sun peeking up
And clearing
Lucky is super strong today - focused on following along a very busy road with bikes, cars, trucks and railroad next to us.
Town of Hershey, NE post office.
Another grain depot along the Union Pacific line in Hershey, NE.
I stumbled into the only coffee in Hershey at the Kwik Stop Gas and Convenience store. In the back area I found tables and one of them had 9 gentlemen around the table with their own mugs drinking coffee and chatting. Talk was of hogs needing to be pasture fed for sale now to news. I asked the woman at the counter about the meeting and she told me they meet twice a day and then after dinner. One issue that I thought was really interesting - there were moments that there was silence; no one said anything for what lasted a minute, everyone was calm, normal and then someone would say something and the crescendo would rise again.
A bright morning on Lincoln Highway - the last few miles before turning off.
One of the massive Union Pacific trains hauling coal.
Grain depot at Sutherland, NE off Lincoln Highway
Right across the street from the Grain depot and conveniently located so trains can haul whatever it is that they dig up
We have a new Huskers fan!
Our day ended at the famous Ole’s Big Game Steakhouse
Rosser, the founder, was a prolific hunter. There are stuffed trophies all over the restaurant. Coming from someone who has never killed anything it was a little sad to look at all the animals that were shot and stuffed - elephants, bobcats, eagles, polar bears, buffalo - you name it and it was there. On the food side, Chris had a prime rib that was good but the sides were cold and his fried chicken gizzards were just ok. On my end, I don’t seem to have luck going out. My garden salad looked bagged - not even any tomatoes. I had a buffalo burger that came out cold and after returning it they brought one out too quickly and I think it was microwaved so as I took the first bite the internal heat burned my mouth. At least I was able to take the cold one home to Lucky who enjoyed it thoroughly!