The SLO RR Museum ~ Tuesday, January 01, 2019

On our drive home from southern California, we visited the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum, which is down the street from the SLO Amtrak station inside a former freight house.

Those are narrow gauge boxcars from the Pacific Coast Railway; they are now attached to the museum building, and you can see them from the inside--by visiting the restrooms, which are built into them.

There is a dual-gauge model railroad that reproduces in miniature the local part of the SP Coast Line, the Pacific Coast Railway (this picture shows the PCRy's dock at Avila), and the Santa Maria Valley Railway.

There are also various railroad-related artifacts.

The last item above is a breathing tube, which steam engine crews in the early days (before cab-forwards) used to breathe (relatively) fresh air out of air-brake lines to avoid the smoky air in long tunnels.

There is a parlor/observation car with a very nice interior--including the smallest piano I have ever seen.

This "critter" was once the base switcher as Camp Roberts, near San Miguel.

After seeing the museum, lunch at the nearby Cajun restaurant Bon Temps is highly recommended.