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As a retired railroader of 40 years as well as a lifelong history geek with a long list of museums visited, this is easily the coolest I have yet seen! This is a WORKING museum. The engine house and machine and blacksmith shops are still in use keeping the steam and diesel locomotives operating. You can tour the entire yard and engine house by yourself, or after the train ride, a guided tour of the engine house is offered. I suggest doing it both ways. The steam locomotive roster is impressive, but steam is only operated on weekends and we were there in the middle of the week. The train ride is nothing exciting or particularly scenic, but it's still cool with a personally narrated (no recording) trip 13 miles out toward the town of McGill and back. You'll also get to see DJ and Dirt. The two shop cats, both born and raised here and treated like royalty. Some folks think they should be rescued, but they seem perfectly happy and like the attention. The general office building is still working as well, providing train orders to all trains and is accessible to the public. The depot is both gift shop and museum and is a very cool representation of early 20th century architecture. If you like trains and history, this is a bucket list museum!…
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Date of experience: June 2022
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The atmosphere was nice with the train in the station, the steam, the sounds and the look of the buildings. The description explains it is a 2-hour ride. However, it should be noted that much of that time is spent with the train barely moving or not moving at all. The narration was also quite lacking. The sound system isn't great, which contributes to the narration being almost grating or annoying. I'm guessing the narrator herself is a volunteer. Maybe if this were a paid position, they would sound a little more interested in what they are reading. It sounded like the material was being read for the first time. She didn't sound familiar with the dialog or seem to care much about it. Perhaps someone with some acting experience could give it some inflection. It was probably my fault for assuming there would be robbers. Rereading the site, I see that only SOME rides have this feature. It was disappointing that we were anticipating them and the script hinted that there COULD be some. It would have made that long stop much more interesting. Perhaps a different script for rides that DON'T have robbers. All in all- I'd say arrive well before the train ride to see the museum first. The ride itself left us rather spent and wanting to move on as soon as it was over. Also, don't go way out of your way to come. The town offers little as far as food - either fast food or dine-in. We searched for someplace to have lunch, and ended up driving all the way to Wendover before finding anything available.…
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Date of experience: June 2022
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The train ride was more of a chug up the tracks and back. The most disappointing part was of their cat named "Dirt" that lives in the engine house. This filthy, matted, underweight cat lives in grease and soot amongst all the train engines. The inside of its ears are black. They have pictures of it everywhere as if its condition is something to be proud of. The cat should be rescued from its environment.…
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Date of experience: June 2022
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My sisters and I bought our Dad a “be the engineer” experience on the Nevada Northern for his 70th birthday last Fall and today he and I rode the rails with him at the controls of #81. You should’ve seen his face light up working the throttle and brakes while tugging on the steam whistle rope for that classic “wooo wooooooo”! Kudos to our awesome crew today - Jim, Josh, and Jonah. Super hospitable, professional railroaders IMO. And kudos to the Nevada Northern office crew who answered numerous phones calls and questions leading up to our trip, helping us be prepared and leading to my Dad having an awesome experience. All in all, I couldn’t recommend the Nevada Northern engineer experience more!. Thank you!…
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Date of experience: June 2022
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