Overnight in North Platte

After leaving Sidney we kept driving east on I-80. We have finally outlasted the bad weather and have pretty blue skies for driving Nebraska. Pretty flat land, green, lots of farming, feedlots, snow fences, some wind turbines, and not many trees. Most have been planted to manage the snow in lieu of fences.

As we headed into North Platte we finally got on a parallel county highway that took us straight thru a couple of typical little farm towns. Older brick buildings that were there since the town started and quite a few "steakhouses" (typical of the area) that we need to try one night.

We wanted to stop in North Platte because it is home to the Bailey train yard. This yard is one of the biggest train yards in the world. 8 square miles of yard with over 400 miles of track in the yard to accommodate the building and rebuilding of various train cars depending on final location. The bowl tracks, and two "humps" help to accomplish this resorting of cars ( all with computer chips to identify each one) in this huge train hub. There is also a huge engine repair shop for Union Pacific. We visited the Golden Spike Tower and museum that serves the yard. Your visit includes going up the tower to the 8th floor to get a "birds eye" look of the yard. They always have a volunteer that has retired from the train industry to answer any questions and share info if you don't know what to ask. Eldon was the volunteer of the day. He retired from Catapillar which provided and serviced all the generators used in the yard. He was excellent, we could have enjoyed his stories for hours. He actually grew up in a train depot not to far from North Platte. Reluctantly we pulled ourselves away, we needed to go find a spot at the local Walmart for dry camping.Read more