The article in question was kind of the official coming out party for the proposed new museum and railroad park development. The Governor was only briefed on Tuesday, and now we can discuss the project in public…
It’s a big project, consisting of a ½ mile railroad themed park, a new interpretive railroad museum campus, and a bike path reaching beyond the park.
It’s a joint project of Nevada State Museums and the City of Boulder City, via their Economic Vitality Commission. Separately the City of Boulder City is doing a complete streets project along Boulder City Parkway that parallels the museum and park site. Beyond that is the construction of Interstate 11, bypassing Boulder City, but including a new railroad bridge to reconnect the museum railroad to the general system, and a bike/pedestrian bridge.
The new Museum campus is propose to include three buildings… 1) a 9,000 s/f Visitor Center, housing the ticket counter, gift shop, waiting area with museum displays, restrooms, and staff offices. This has been designed to 20%, and has a cost of $12 to $15 million depending on when built, and to a lesser extend what options are chosen. 2) a enclosed display hall, with two tracks, one narrow gauge, the second standard gauge, about 200’ long… Proposed displays included Eureka and Elsa, with the stabilized carbody of Palisades, our 1888 Wagner Palace car, Ellsmere, and the Nevada State “Merci Car” and finally 3) an open display pavilion, 2 tracks wide, 300’ long, displaying our 1907 UP 2-8-0, a UP RPO, a UP Chair car and a 1882 UP standard gauge caboose on one track, the second being used for our diesel collection. Our existing display pavilion at the opposite end of the property would be extended to house the state train when not in use, and our “bone yard” collection of so far unrestored equipment. Between the two pavilions would be a two track yard for freight equipment as well as a couple of grounded passenger car bodies, used both as storage, and to interpret the lives of people who worked for the railroad, and lived in railroad housing.
Also in the park would be our 7’5” gauge live steam railroad, with a live steam garden railroad area, a railroad themed playground with a splash pad based on a railroad water tower, picnic areas, and mid site rest rooms…
Through the park would be a 3’ gauge railroad, used as a shuttle system. We have two privately owned narrow gauge Plymouths, a 1922 DL and a 1970 H model… as well as Dan’s flat car. That railroad would have a passing siding and a non-public car house for unrestored cars, as well as a track into the display hall… the track into the display hall has a provision for a turntable. We (aka Dan) have/has a 90 lb frog on hand to allow NG access onto the standard gauge line. That has regulatory issues, but is in the mix.
The bike/ped path would extend well beyond the park, to connect to the existing “River Mountain Loop” train, to give it direct access to Boulder City (it currently avoids the city, keeping to the mountains to the north, at higher elevation… As well as to more of Henderson via the new bridge over I-11….
The current project cost is under $30 million… (not $40 million as mentioned in the article) including the much higher costs of the visitor center which we learned of on Wednesday, and all the costs of the bike/ped trail. That would even be true with the costs of the two I-11 bridges added.
Under state law, this museum is required to earn its own way… 100% of expenses including diesel fuel, repairs, utilities, and on and on, as well as 66% of staff costs… the rest is funded 55% by Tourism (Museums and Libraries are under Tourism) and 45% by the General Fund. We can (and hope to) benefit from Capital projects… but haven’t in recent years. We cost the state’s general fund about $100,000 per year… maybe less.
We are the most visited State Museum, the fastest growing, with the least staff… we are primarily staffed by volunteers…. 115 committed volunteers.
Randy
Randy Hees
Director, Nevada State Railroad Museum, Boulder City, retired
PacificNG.org - a curated Wiki on Pacific Slope Narrow Gauge www.pacificng.com
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/08/2017 09:32PM by Randy Hees.
