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Scott Schrantz's BlogSunday, August 29, 2010
The Virginia and Truckee Railroad has been running great all summer. Ever since opening weekend on Memorial Day they've been selling out most of the trains, at least the round-trip trains from Carson to Virginia and back. The one-way trips are still not selling very well, but those trips are necessary deadheads that get the train from the enginehouse to the depot, and any money they make on them is gravy. Probably gravy they had been counting on when they made their budgets, but if they ever end up building shop facilities at the Carson City end of the tracks the need for those one-way trips will go away.
Anyway, with sales so strong, they decided to extend the running season for the V&T this year. Originally the last train was supposed to run on Nevada Day weekend, at the end of October. But they've just announced that they're adding six extra weekends, more trains to provide extra capacity so more people can ride (and so they can bring in more money).
They've also added a new trip to their options, an additional run that leaves after the train gets back from Virginia City on Saturday. It's called "Colors In The Canyon", and it heads the other direction from Eastgate Depot. It uses the new tracks the run down into the Carson River Canyon, and provides a 45 minute trip to the river and back, showing the fall colors along the way. Although I've been along that route, and there's not a lot of trees to speak of. But maybe we can watch the sagebrush turn from green to a duller green.
Joking aside, this seems like a good option for them to add a trip into the canyon. The price is a lot lower than any of their other options too, at $15. Although that's still more than the Virginia City to Gold Hill run, which at $10 is the best deal around, as well as the most scenic. This trip through the canyon is supposed to be scenic too, but the truth is that over half of this trip is time you spend just getting down into the canyon. From what I understand, the track ends almost as soon as you catch sight of the river. This might be a more viable option when the tracks are finished all the way through the entire canyon, but right now it seems a little overpriced for what you get. So I'm glad to see that the V&T is doing well enough to add these runs, and that they're still selling out a lot of their weekend trips. This is the second year of the experiment, to find out how much demand there really is for these train trips. It's heartening to know that we haven't run out of people willing to pay $48 a head yet. It would be interesting to find out how many second-time riders there are on these trains, or if the line of people who want to ride it once because they're curious just hasn't run out yet. Tags: vtrailroad Thursday, August 26, 2010All summer Hwy 395 has been a work zone between Carson City and the Carson Valley, as NDOT adds a third lane to the highway on the southbound side. The construction zone goes from Jacks Valley Road down to Clear Creek Road, and they've been working for weeks on the shoulder, grading and paving a new roadbed. I guess that part of the project is over, because they've taken down the construction walls and we now have asphalt, new curbs, and guard rails all in place.
I don't think they're quite done yet, they're probably going to put a new layer of pavement on the two lanes that were already there, or at least do something to smooth out the rumble strip between the old lanes and the new. But this is a good sign that the hard part is over, and the project is winding down now.
Tags: carsoncity construction hwy395 Friday, August 20, 2010
Last year the Spirit Halloween store was in the old Carpet Barn. This year that's a little impossible, so they've moved to the old Gottschalk's building in the Carson Mall. It seems like it's altogether too early to be thinking about Halloween, but it guess it is just two months away. Next week stores will start putting up Christmas decorations, so let's get Halloween out of the way now, eh? Tags: carsoncity carsonmall halloween spirithalloweenstore Friday, August 13, 2010I love finding Carson City trip reports on the web, outsiders who visit our part of the world and proceed to tell their friends how cool/boring/weird we are. The latest one I found is from Little Music Boxes; they visited Reno, Pyramid Lake, VC, Carson, and Lake Tahoe. The whirlwind tour!
Tags: carsoncity tripreport
Carson Now has an article outlining some of the events going on this weekend, including the Carson City Jazz Fest, Genoa Old Time Music Festival, and the Bowers Mansion Bluegrass Festival. Also this weekend the steam train is running at the Nevada State Railroad Museum Saturday and Sunday. Tags: carsoncity genoa Saturday, August 7, 2010
Earlier this week, I was cruising through town when I saw smoke rising in the distance. Suddenly I noticed it wasn't as far away as I thought, it was actually coming from right in the middle of town. I took a detour and found a house fully engulfed in flames. The little yellow house at the corner of 7th and Curry, right across the street from the Ormsby House. The flames were in the backyard, and pretty well chewed through the barn and trailer they had back there, as well as the rear of the house.
Fire crews were already on the scene when I got there, and had things pretty well under control. The flames turned to smoke, and then were completely out. What was left was a charred mess, but luckily everyone got out okay, including the two residents of the house and the dog that was trapped in the trailer. 6-year-old Thor was stuck in the trailer as it burned around him, but the firefighters knocked down the flames and found him hiding inside.
This house is 93 years old, built in 1917. I can't imagine they'll try to repair it. With 25% fire damage, it's probably a complete loss. Video from Nevada Appeal: Video from Carson Now: Tags: carsoncity Saturday, July 31, 2010
Last year a new retail building was built on South Carson to house Sportsman's Warehouse. The building was right next door to the Burlington Coat Factory, and actually stood on the footprint of the south half of the old Wal-Mart building, which had been demolished. But as soon as the scaffolding came down on the new building, it was announced that Sportsman's Warehouse was declaring bankruptcy, and would not be opening in Carson City after all. So this brand-new building has been sitting empty ever since, never holding a tenant.
But now it sounds like it will be getting a tenant. I saw this sign on the building last night saying that Big Lots was coming to the space, but it didn't look authentic. It looks like some crude graffiti. It's real, though, as verified by the Nevada Appeal. Big Lots has taken over the space, and will open in October. Carson Now points this out as part of a large upswing in activity on the south end of town. There is the new Kohl's, which is moving into the old Mervyn's building. Construction on that is coming along very nicely, with the inside being completely transformed. They also mention a possible buyer for the old Carson City Toyota lot, which sits on a prominent corner at Koontz and Carson. There's also the rumor that a Olive Garden might be coming to the Southgate Center, along with JC Penney and Burlington. All good news for South Carson. Tags: biglots carsoncity construction sportsmanswarehouse
The new Carson Stadium Cinemas officially opened yesterday, adding a second movie theater to Carson City's options. Now, this isn't a new movie theater, and you can't really call it a "grand opening" so much as a "re-opening". That's because Carson Stadium Cinemas is really the old Northgate Movies, which closed two years ago. The theater is back with new owners and new management, and they're ready to make a run on the stranglehold the Galaxy Theaters has over Carson City. Although they're not directly going up against Galaxy; this will be a second-run movie theater, showing for $3 movies that have already come and gone. Carson needs a good second-run house. The Northgate Movies was showing second-run features right before it closed, but it obviously wasn't a good second-run house because it didn't last long. If they can keep this theater clean and keep away the kids that always made going to the movies here a miserable experience, it just might work out. I wish them luck. The Carson Stadium Cinemas is located at 2571 N. Carson St., right behind the KFC and Wendy's. A few years ago I wrote an article outlining the history of Northgate Movies, as well as Carson's other movie theaters. There are also reports from Carson Now and RGJ. Tags: carsoncity carsonstadiumcinemas northgate10 Saturday, July 24, 2010Locomotive #18 used to run on the McCloud River Railroad in northern California. In 2005 it was bought by the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway to run from Carson City to Virginia City, even though they didn't have any tracks at the time. So they sent the engine to the Sierra Railroad in central California to hold onto it for them. Finally last year, in 2009, the tracks were finished and the engine came to Carson City. But first there were some repairs that needed to be made before it could be used for regular service, and then this spring it was leased to a film company to be used in a Hollywood movie (Water For Elephants, coming to theaters in 2011). Now, at long last, the engine is back in Nevada and in good running order, and is ready to fulfill its purpose of hauling passengers along the Virginia and Truckee rails. Today, July 24, 2010, was the first day the engine was in service. These are photos of the engine and passenger cars at the station.
Tags: mccloud18 vtrailroad Sunday, July 18, 2010Usually when a restaurant closes, it's gone for good. If times are good a new restaurant can move into the space, like when Super Burrito took over the old Burger King location. If times are bad the building stays shuttered, like the old Sizzler in north Carson, and the nearby Golden Dragon which has been closed and abandoned for 20 years now. And in rare cases the restaurant can make another go of it in a new spot, like when Cafe Del Rio failed three times in Carson City before finally making it up on the Comstock.
But when a restaurant closes it's usually gone for good, and they almost never reopen in the same location. But that's just what might happen with the Station Grille, which closed two years ago. The building has sat empty ever since, in a good location on south Carson Street right next to the mall. The restaurant is owned by the Carson Station Casino across the street, and there just weren't enough customers coming in to justify keeping it open. They've been trying to sell the building, but there haven't been any takers. And now the Carson Station is finding itself on better financial footing, so they think they're ready to reopen the Grille and give it a second go. I hope it works out! Tags: carsoncity stationgrille |
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