Friday, March 3, 2023

West Florida Railroad Museum

 This is a small static museum located north of Pensacola in the town of Milton.  The local depot serves as the base.  It's located along an active rail line, although there is no longer any connection between the museum trackage and the general system.


Inside the freight end of the building, there are the usual displays of various artifacts.


Outside, on one track there's a caboose and a couple of freight cars.  The equipment on display is kept in good condition cosmetically.


Perhaps of most interest to us is this L&N diner of the same series as our Galt House, the Globe Coffee House, #2722.   It's nicely painted in the blue paint scheme.  I'll leave it to our resident L&N expert to explain all the details.


The interior was gutted at some point, so there's nothing left of the original kitchen.


But the kitchen end is now equipped with modern appliances, and the car is used for hosting birthday parties and so on.


The other passenger car was built as a standard Pullman 12-1-1 sleeper.  It was later rebuilt as a baggage-dorm combine to AEC requirements for transporting nuclear materials.  The dorm space was used by four armed guards who were there to keep anyone from trying to steal the nuclear materials and holding the country hostage.  Hmmm, you could make a movie out of that....


Across the street is a large garden railway, with two or three different gauges.





I asked the guys who were working on it what they do when a hurricane approaches.  They just take all the trains inside, and everything else gets wet.  I guess it works for them.

But as usual, there's no place like home.

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