Tom's Jamaican Railroad Adventure

[Tom]

Finally after 3 weeks in Jamaica (only 10 more days to go!), Dad and I went to the other side of the island, to Ocho Rios. What a place. Sitting on the beach at Jimmy Buffets "Margaritaville" drinking margaritas as big as my boot (REAL margaritas too, just the way I like them, frozen, light on the salt with a slice of lime), watching the talent slide down the water slide in bikinis that in reality are about a size too small for them. The water slide dumps you out IN THE BAR! One side of the bar is in the pool. WAY too cool.

Life doesn't get any better. The only thing that would have MADE it better is if Alicia was there and the cigar shop would have actually HAD a selection (3 brands, all crap you can get in the States, minimum $25 a cigar (?!). They had 3 cubans left, but they were dark, $55 a piece and looked like they came out of a donkey's bum. No thanks.

Went shopping, picked Alicia & my sisters up some cool swag. All around VERY relaxing (and expensive!) day.

Photos of our adventures here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j137/wprm/Jamaica/">http://s79.photobucket.com/albums/j137/wprm/Jamaica/</a><!-- m -->
'
There are some photos of the rail operations here, but no photos of the ex SP Baldwin AS-6-16s over at Windalco yet. Just haven't had time during the week to go see them, although they are real close, because I hear them at breakfast. Jamalco uses ex-UP GP38-3's, a GP38L (still in UP paint, shop queen, piece of crap hangs around the shop more than it works the yard, water in the cylinders now), and 2 ex-UP GP40-2's. I just thought it was hillarious that I come all the way to Jamaica to see UP locomotives. They have one F40PH that used to be the Amtrak 373 and I know THAT engine REAL well, as I used to work with it on the San Jaoquins when I was with Amtrak out of Oakland, CA. Smaall world...

Anyway, there are a lot of vacation pics to dig through to get to the RR pics, but if you have the time and the patience to dig through them they are about the middle of the collection there at Photobucket. Neat RR operation, having a blast.

Tom

PS: Sorry guys, no photos of the "talent". There were about 5 or 6 BIG dudes with them and I had already had 3 or 4 margaritas by that time, so I just spectated.