Thanks partly to my old friend Tommy LaBonge for all of the helping to put most of these pieces of equipment out of the weather at Travel Town, where they were rusting and rotting away. But while the collection is in much better shape than it was just a few years ago, much preservation and restoration work is left to be done.

Travel Town has never really had the clearest mission or theme as a RR collection that I could really identify. This "vision" is still somewhat lacking, at least to my public perception, although todays displays and collections are being managed and preserved much better.

I'd even be willing to have them look at things like giving the Oahu equipment back to the Oahu RR group for restoration, or using those to "trade" for acquisition of other pieces that might better focus on a CA collection that reflects more coherently LA's SP/UP/PE/LARY/ATSF history and heritage.

I had a great time with the GF's grand kid last year, though. And, if LALS is also operating a lot of stuff, it can be a great weekend adventure, for that age group to learn all about choo-choo's.