Sagebrush Short Line Railroad

This evening we took a ride on the local railroad.

Back in 1999 George Pruitt and several of his railroad friends started building their own little model railroad. This little model railroad of there is a 7.5 inch gage. Which is approximately 1/8 scale. They call this a large scale model train.

Well the same year they started building their railroad they opened up around Christmas to let their friends come ride on the trains. Over the last 6 years their little model train has grown into 4500 feet of track with 30 switches. They have decorated the yard with several home made Christmas decorations which include a full sized sleigh with 8 flying reindeer and a large castle guarded by several tin soldiers.

This year they hope to have trains from Whittier, Riverside, Apple Valley, Tehachapi and Weldon for their visitors to ride.

Each year my father-in-law gets the family an invitation to go ride the trains. We always have a blast. The yard is always decorated in lots of Christmas lights and displays. Santa Claus usually stops in and talks to the kids for awhile. The wait online is usually only about 15 minutes, often less. Each train pulls bench seat cars. You have to sit in a straight line one behind the other. Each ride usually lasts about 10 minutes.

This year it was rather chilly, and the lines were kind of long. So we only rode one train. We hadn’t had dinner yet and everyone was getting cold and hungry. So we didn’t stick around.

So we loaded back into the van and drove around checking out some of the Christmas lights in town. After a quick dinner at Carl’s Jr. we checked out a couple more lights and called it a night.

A ride on the Sagebrush Short Line Railroad is quickly becoming a Christmas tradition with us. It is one we hope to be able to keep doing for several more years.