Our WAY Big Adventure

While some of the museums and sites we would like to visit are closed on Sundays, we still found plenty to do this afternoon to occupy our time. North Platte is home to Union Pacific Railroad’s Bailey Yard, the largest in the world. Union Pacific celebrated the grand opening of this yard in 1869 boasting transportation from the Altantic to the Pacific. Currently this yard handles 15,000 rail cars every 24 hours. The east and westbound cars are sorted into 114 “bowl” tracks where they become part of trains heading all over the country. We got to view the enormous yard from the top of the ‘Golden Spike’ tower. The view of the 8 mile yard was amazing! We watched trains pass through, cars hook together, we could see the foothills of the Black Hills to the north and the huge Platte River basin…and while I rarely put my camera down, I now realize I do not have one picture of what we saw from atop that tower! It must have been the altitude!

We also enjoyed a Sunday drive in search of some historical markers. Our first was a Pony Express Station rightfully placed near a present day horse farm. The Pony Express was a mail service between California and Missouri. The brave riders would hop on a new horse every 10 miles on their 200 mile route before passing the mail to another rider. It took only eight days for the Pony Express to get a letter to Sacremento, but the service was replaced after just a few years by the telegraph.