We went back to Portola from the rest stop, about a mile. It was about 9am and nothing in the town opens until 10 am. We took a walk around town and determined we like the place. Dawn stopped at the public library and bought a fe books and tapes. We also browsed at a downtown bookstore. It was now 11:30 so we stopped at the pharmacy for lunch. They have a nice fountain there and we had a couple of bowls of navy bean soup and a ham olive loaf and cheese sandwich.
We then, finally, went to the Western Pacific Railway Museum, the reason for our return. They have a lot of equipment and you can roam around the yard and shop looking as you like. They had some military cars we hadn't seen before. They have operating diesel engines and run them on their short track on the weekends. They have some grand plans for a very impressive museum but,for now, they mostly have a lot of unrestored equipment and some restored equipment siting on the track outside. It consists mostly of diesel engines and rail cars, not much of the small stuff. The snow blower engine is impressive.
Most of the engines are diesel but there was at least one steam engine being worked on at the shop/
We had a nice time looking around. We then headed off toward Reno.
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