Memories from a pre-covid trip...
Last year I was teaching high school in California and we
were sent home to conduct “distance learning” on March 13
th and my old
school is still at home trying to teach and learn via the Internet. That’s getting
close to a whole year. Now, this post is not about the merits of distance
learning or whether students should be in the classroom during a surge in the
pandemic. When I decided to share some pictures of the
California State Railroad Museum I was reminded that people in professions other than hospitality
and travel are having a hard time during this crisis as well. There are a good number of museum workers at home too.
What I’m saying is that there is definitely a crisis for
those working in museums and historic sites. Last summer there was
an article in Forbes that said that the pandemic could close up to a third of all
museums in the United States. Permanently. I was struck by this statistic when
I checked in on the
California State Railroad Museum’s website and found out
that they had been closed completely since November 2020.
I hope that with the increasing availability of vaccines and
through our own mitigation efforts, we will be able to travel to historic sites
and museums once again. In the meantime, let me share some pictures from a pre-COVID-19
trip to Sacramento when we were able to walk through the museum and look at
some trains up close and personal.
The California State Railroad Museum is in Old Town Sacramento,
just north of where Interstate 5 and 80 intersect. It’s the historic waterfront
of the Sacramento River.
We did a blog post about our visit to Old Town Sacramento
back before the pandemic. One of the main attractions is of course the railroad
museum, but there are many shops, restaurants, and other attractions for non-train
enthusiasts (is there such a thing?). In the summer months, you will also find
historical reenactors encamped in the state park.
Since Sacramento was the western terminus for
the First Transcontinental Railroad, the museum devotes an enjoyable and educational
exhibit to this feat of engineering (that would be building a railroad through the
Sierra Nevada mountains in the 1860s.) I especially enjoyed the exhibit on the
heyday of passenger travel. If I did not make it clear, this museum is full of
trains.
So you will get to not only see the trains but also climb on them and go inside them. Another exhibit I
liked was the homage to toy trains and the vast collection they have on
display.
The California State Railroad Museum is a first-class, fun
place to visit. Very kid-friendly. It rates a place on my “places I’d go to
again” list. While it is currently closed for the pandemic (which has hit
California especially hard over the holidays), you can still enjoy the museum
online.
Visit their website and maybe
like their Facebook page, which is full
of great pictures. You can still support museums with a cash donation or buy
something from the museum store if they are available online (
which the railroad museum is).
Just remember that hard times don’t last. And if we never had it
rough, we wouldn’t know when we had it good. But for now, enjoy some pictures
of trains.
