North Platte, Nebraska, turns out to have two major tourist attractions. It is the birthplace of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, the great showman, who is responsible for much of the idealized view of the late 19 c. West in popular culture. It is also home to the largest train yard in the world. We took a pass on Bill, but went to see the trains. Over 150 freight trains rumble through North Platte each day. The yard, where trains are assembled and disassembled, has over 300 miles of track. As our guide told us: “Think what the Fed Ex sorting facility looks like, this is the sort for train cars.”

As we watched from the 8th-story of the observation tower, a coal train with 120 cars, each holding 100 tons, headed east while a container train headed west. As we headed west out of town ourselves, we took a small road that had a railroad crossing before joining the major highway. A freight train was stopped at the crossing and nothing moved for at least 15 minutes while we sat and waited. We finally decided to backtrack to a bridge, on the view that even the most efficient yard still has occasional delays.