4/12/15 - The Skunk Train

4/12/15 - Today we took the Skunk Train right from our campground in Willits, CA.

Here is an explanation of the Skunk Train. 

Come ride the SKUNK in its natural habitat.  Forty miles of railroad run through majestic redwood forests, scenic mountain meadows, and over 30 trestles bridging pristine mountain waters of Northern California. 

Regardless of your departure point, the view from our restored rail cars is pretty much unchanged from the late 1800's. 

When departing from Willits and traveling to Northspur, the train will climb the Eastern slope of the California Coast Range, cutting through it at Tunnel #2 (Summit) before descending into the Noyo River Canyon. This is the mountainous part if the railroad line, in which 8.5 miles of track cover a straight-line distance of less than one mile. 

If you want to see more about thisSkunk Train you can find it at www.skunktrain.com. 

Here are some pictures from our trip. 

Skunk Train coming down the track to pick us up. 

Here are Carp & I holding on, on the open air flatbed of the train so that we could enjoy all the surroundings as the train chugged down the track. 

Picture of train's engine from on the open air car that we were on. 

There was a young man who worked for the train company who serenaded us as we rode along. 

 

Our conductor. 

The open air train.  

Carp enjoying the trip! 

Me too!  It was an awesome trip. 

We stop over in Northspur for lunch.

While we were eating our lunch they were turning the steam engine car around & moving it to the other end of the train for the return trip. 

On our trip back everyone on the outside platform car had to move left because their was a tree that fell down in the woods near the track & they needed to go out & cut it down so that it would not fall on the train & injure anyone.  

Nice that the engineer had a chainsaw on the train!  He probably gets that all the time. 😄