Greetings,

I'm going to be visiting Houston on business towards the end of this month and am wondering what if there's anything worth visiting in the area. Your help is appreciated.

God Bless,
Gerald W. Kopiasz

Hi Gerald;

There were one or two folks who used to haunt this board that lived in the Houston area. (I live outside of Beaumont, about 1 1/2 hours away.) I was hoping one of them would chime in; but since they didn't, here we go:

To aquaint yourself with the tracks around the Houston area; check out the Houston Railroads, 2004 webpage. It will give you a good overview of the tracks around Houston. Hardy Yard in downtown Houston is all but gone, but there is a huge railroad yard north of Houston just off the Hardy Toll Road.

There is also Project 982 in Hermann Park, right next to the Zoo. This is a Southern Pacific 2-10-2 that is slowly being restored with the intention of running it one day. A park train next to it gives a nice ride around Hermann Park.

A place I like to eat at is the Railroad Crossing Restaurant & Catering at 14715 Hempstead Rd. They serve good Barbeque; part of the dining room is a Rock Island heavyweight passenger car. The office is a Southern Pacific Caboose; there is active track right behind it which may see one train while you are there. Some railroad items and a homebuilt steam locomotive (which is looking sorry since some recent right of way work) is also there.

If you have a rental car or other transportation, the Railroad Museum in Galveston is worth checking out. It is located in the old Railroad Terminal; John Bowers is working on a brief on the museum that will hopefully be out before your visit.

Also recommend checking out the NASA Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake; there is an actual Saturn 5 rocket on display there along with tons of other stuff. Also recommend seeing the Battleship Texas, next to the San Jacinto Monument. It is a national historic landmark; one of the engine rooms is open to the public where you can see one of the four cylinder, triple expansion vertical steam engines. I recently took a "hard hat" tour of the Texas, where we got to visit one of the boiler rooms, the bridge, Turret One, and other areas not normally open to the public. There is a hard hat tour scheduled for March 12; but I don't know if there are any spaces open. You have to make a reservation in advance; all of the information you need is here. I posted a trip report on my hard hat tour to the Steam Lizards Group on Yahoo; Hume may be condensing it into a RYPN Brief; so I will leave it at that.

There are probably other items worth noting as well; but these come to mind. If you are interested in meeting up during your visit, send me an e-mail.

-God Bless;
James Hefner
Hebrews 10:20a

Surviving World Steam Project