Salt Lake City Trip (picture heavy)

[Hardcase]

This summer I've been busier than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I don't think that I've been out shooting for almost three months. It's a crying shame is what it is. But I did get a chance to drive down to Salt Lake City last week so my wife could attend the American Association of State and Local History convention. It didn't take too much snooping around to discover that there is a pretty stellar museum just up the road in Ogden. The Union Station has three museums in it - a railroad museum, a car museum and, wonder of wonders, the John Moses Browning museum.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of foresight, I left my camera at the hotel. But I did bring my cell phone, which does OK. Apologies in advance for some blurry pictures, but flash photography in a museum is a big no-no (as my wife told me).

All of these guns belonged to John Browning or to his son Val.

The entrance to the Browning Museum

John Browning's Winchester 1882

A pair of 1892s, including Browning's prototype for a "simplified" version, designed in 1893

A pair of Winchester 1894s

Browning's first attempt at a gas-operated semi-auto rifle, designed in 1889

The Winchester pump-action .22s - 1890, 1906 and 63

(Continued in the next post)

 

[Hardcase]

Early semi-auto shotguns

The development of the 1911 pistol

A view of part of the museum displays

John Browning's workshop - disassembled from the original building and reassembled at the museum

There were also examples of machine guns and some more modern rifles and shotguns that Val Browning (John's son) designed.

The Car museum had a collection of around ten or so antique cars that John Browning purchased over his lifetime. Nothing cheap or utilitarian, either - all top of the line Packards, Lincolns, Durants and the like.

 

[couillon]

I just love museums like that. Thanks for sharing. I will make a point to visit it when I am up that way on a future hunting trip.

 

[Hardcase]

On our way home, we took a detour out to Box Elder, Utah, which is where the Golden Spike was set. The Golden Spike National Monument is there and it includes two completely functional, faithful reproductions of the Central Pacific's "Jupiter" and the Union Pacific's "119" locomotives. They fire them up twice a day and run them up and down the track.

Jupter and 119

Inside the cab of the Jupiter

Inside the cab of the 119

The 119 runs on coal and the Jupiter on wood, just like the originals!

 

[Doc Hoy]

Hardcase

Tubular!

 

[bushmaster65]

aint nooo way you'd get me in the cab of one of those trains while it was running! Biggest damn pipe bomb there is! Even if it is ONLY steam!

 

[Hardcase]

aint nooo way you'd get me in the cab of one of those trains while it was running! Biggest damn pipe bomb there is! Even if it is ONLY steam!

That's what I was thinking when I was standing next to them. You could hear all the noise the boilers were making, along with the steam noises in the piping and valves. And, of course, both of them had little leaks here and there as well as pressure reliefs popping off now and then. The roadbed under the Jupiter was practically soaked!

According to the National Park Service, the only differences between the new locomotives and the originals are that the steam cylinders are one-piece castings, instead of the three pieces that were bolted together, the brakes are modern Westinghouse models instead of hand brakes and the boilers are steel instead of (gasp) cast iron.