This was a "special occasion" for me: my first small group on the trip. I didn't know any of the kids and vice versa. But they seemed more comfortable with me than I with them.

And this was certainly a challenge for my one hour of tutelage! My group consisted of three boys and one girl when the ratio for the tour is 8 girls to 5 boys. My girl, let's call her K., was seriously POed! And I couldn't really blame her. That is my group going in the museum above right, K. tagging along wondering why "Mr. Lukassen hated her".

Once inside, they did better and actually interacted a bit. We slipped out a back door which, as it turns out, was supposed to be locked and poked around the railcars.

We were all disappointed that there were no engines to see; seems they are kept in another location and were steaming up at the early hour we were visiting. The museum itself had just opened and the ticket office (The train goes between Durango and Silverton on a regular basis.) was still closed. Then we couldn't get back in until we knocked vigorously on the door and an astonished woman opened it and asked where we came from!

As you can see, K. kept her distance from the boys with little tangible results. :) I did promise to discuss this issue with the teacher later but that was small consolation for her present "crisis".

That is two of my group right above roughhousing a bit before I suggested they calm down some. To the right in that picture is an old wooden phone booth; they seemed fascinated by this and took turns entering and closing the door. I asked if they had ever seen one like this before and they said they had but it was obviously still a novelty.

We all shopped and I bought an engineers cap while one of the boys really seemed to want to buy a pink souvenir cap but he decided not to. Even K. thought it looked good on him as well as suggesting how my new purchase should be worn. No wonder she was put out hanging with a bunch of males!

The stress level dropped when another group joined us, allowing the more "natural" male-female grouping to happen.

Here are some shots of the interior of the museum. This is the actual train depot from the late 1800s. I adored the ornate and massive woodstoves. The light fixtures are converted gaslights, now electric.

Disregarding the TV monitors, of course!

The rear of the ticket office is the bay window for the stationmaster to watch the rails, visible in the third picture from the top.

Anyway, Mr. Lukassen showed up and, being the silver-tongued devil he is, arranged for everyone to get a special visit to the Real Museum: the roundhouse! Even though they didn't open for hours.

The pictures on the left are of us leaving the museum (We weren't organized enough going nor was the light right for pictures.). The woman in black was the lady who escorted us to the roundhouse and unlocked the doors for us. From the back she looks like a goth but she really wasn't and very pleasant. The crew in the train house was surprised to see us but soon accepted our presence since this was hardly their first encounter with off-hours visitors.

The picture above was taken from the front door of the museum. The lighting was terrible for photography which is why some of these pictures appear washed out; I had to do some deep enhancing to bring out the detail.

The fire engine is the first thing one sees and is really cool! I can just imagine racing to a fire in it!

Number 476 is one of a dozen engines of this series and one of the few surviving ones. A sister engine met is fate here in Durango when the crew left it on the turntable and it somehow slipped into gear and drove itself off into the turntable pit. It was scrapped after that.

The people on the platform at left are the girls from our tour.

The odd looking engine below is called the "Casey Jones". When the boys saw it they immediately called it the "Galloping Goose" but I explained it was a similar machine but different. We'd be seeing one of the original Gooses (Geese?) later that day but I didn't know that.

These things have V8 internal combustion engines adapted from motor cars and drive shafts to the front trolleys of the cars they are "pulling". And no mufflers I could see. I don't think the larger car behind it is anything the Casey would pull. They seemed pressed for room and were "stacking" rail stock where ever it would fit when they got them.