This was the plan on a very hot June day:
1) Visit the Tucson Train Depot Museum because museums are air conditioned, cool and interesting.
2) After seeing train stuff and whatever else was in the Museum, have lunch at the Maynard Market patio next door which faces right on to the intercontinental train tracks. The patio is surrounded by trees and has shade sails.
3) Take photos of any freight train that rolls by during lunch.
Here is how it went:
The Tucson Train Depot Museum is essentially one old, restored Southern Pacific locomotive sited next to the train tracks. It is under a shelter but there are no walls, no cool air.
If there is an air-conditioned indoor museum accompanying it, I didn’t find it. I found statues of two Old West gunmen instead. I have since learned that there is some kind of tour of the old depot, but only by appointment.
So I scrambled around the train, took some photos.
The Museum, like all museums, was soliciting funds for specific purposes–like a new chime whistle for $2,400.
Next I decided to take a look at the Amtrak Station since there was no indoor museum for me to visit. Two Amtrak trains run through Tucson each day: The Sunset Limited which runs L.A. to New Orleans and the Texas Eagle which goes to Chicago from L.A.. The fare from Tucson to L.A. can be as low as an astonishing $39, sometimes. Other times it is $49, or $61. It’s a 9 or 10 hour trip. Many freight trains run across the country on these tracks and I hear the whistles in the distance quite often day and night.
The Amtrak station was closed and locked so I peered through the window, took a photo. Interesting that the clock on the wall was not working. I thought trains were scrupulous about time and schedules.
Next on the plan was lunch at Maynard’s Market patio. It turned out to be closed, too, but with a sign that promised re-opening soon. This is not uncommon these days as Tucson begins to re-open after the pandemic. The more formal Maynard’s restaurant inside the Hotel Congress across the street is already open.
Then it happened. A freight train came roaring by with double stacked containers heading for Los Angeles. At least one part of my plan worked out. But it was too hot to find someplace else for lunch so I drove home.
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Today, Friday, June 11th, 2021 the high temperature in Tucson is forecast to be 105F. Sunday’s forecast is for 113F (45 celsius).
