Golden Spike

Thursday was a good day at work. My colleague Candace and I had to go to Golden Spike National Historic Site to do an inspection. It's not too far away, but it was a beautiful day for a drive. I had never been there before and I was pleasantly surprised at how cool it was. After we did our inspection at the maintenance shed, we headed over to the visitor's center. We got there just in time to see the trains come chuggin' along from the maintenance shed we were just at. They're very cool. We actually got a special tour of inside the trains. The train engineers told us we forgot to inspect the most interesting thing there, so he took us aboard both trains. They are both steam locomotives but one is heated with coal and one is heated with wood. After we had our private little tour aboard the trains, we were climbing down and a visitor asked the engineer if his son could come aboard. "Sorry, said the engineer, we're not allowed to take anyone aboard, but these here are state inspectors." I kind of felt bad, but oh well it's about time I get some perks out of my job! We actually will probably need to do inspections at many of the state's national parks, so this will be a fun summer for work!

The "119" locomotive



The "Jupiter" locomotive