Stay, steam at
the Lions Gate Hotel
McClellan, Calif.
Get the full steamup experience while
taking advantage of a low room rate

If you’ve never attended a small-scale live steamup, a startling aspect is that these things really do run 18 hours a day. You can go to the track at 7 a.m. or 7 p.m., noon or midnight, and find engines being run.

If you’ve been to a steamup, we don’t have to tell you that the best way to experience it is to stay at the steamup hotel.

The Lions Gate Hotel, in McClellan Park (a former U.S. Air Force base near the Sacramento suburb of North Highlands) is a high-quality hotel that provides luxurious rooms at an extremely low rate. The hotel is in a campus-like setting and we will have an entire building, the Garden Pavilion, for steaming.

Executives at the Lions Gate have been persuaded to provide attendees of the National Summer Steamup 2010 with a room rate that is low for Sacramento: $91 a night (any room in the hotel, plus tax), including a complimentary continental breakfast (which can be upgraded for $4.95 to the hot breakfast).

Let’s be honest: hotels want full sleeping rooms, not necessarily full ballrooms. What we pay to rent the ballroom is directly related to how many rooms we’ve filled.

While there may be less expensive rooms in the area, your stay at the Lions Gate shows your support for the National Summer Steamup and that you are concerned that it will continue into the future.

The Lions Gate is located at the junction of Business Interstate 80 and Interstate 80, 10 miles from downtown Sacramento.

The hotel is 20 minutes from the Sacramento International Airport and is eight miles from Interstate 5, making driving in from the north or south easy.

For those interested in other aspects of the railroad hobby, Northern California provides a variety of unique rail and live steam experiences:

♦The California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, home to live-steam artifacts as well as a provider of live steam rides (weekends only) is a 15-minute drive from the Lions Gate.

♦The Sacramento River Train offers a 2½-hour excursion ride at 10 a.m. Saturday and a dinner train Saturday at 7 p.m. Sometimes the Sacramento Valley Historical Railways’ Baldwin 0-6-0 ex-Southern Pacific 1233 steam engine pulls the consist. The river train depot is 25 minutes away.

♦The Sacramento Valley Live Steamers Railroad Museum features more than 6300 feet of 7½- and 4¾-inch gauge track. There is a public run day on Sunday, with rides from noon until 4 p.m. SVLS is in Hagan Community Park in Rancho Cordova, a 23-minute drive from the hotel.

♦In Alameda County, the Pacific Locomotive Association operates standard-gauge live steam locomotive rides every Sunday throughout the summer. It’s a 1¾-hour drive from the hotel to the Niles Canyon Railway.

♦For narrow-gauge live steam enthusiasts, the Roaring Camp and Big Trees Railroad operates one of two Shays or a Heisler five times a day on weekends and four times weekdays; Roaring Camp is in Santa Cruz County, a 2¾-hour drive.

♦The Golden Gate Live Steamers, with 2½- to 7½-inch tracks, run every Sunday in Oakland’s Tilden Park. In addition, the 15-inch gauge live steam Redwood Valley Railway is also in Tilden; on Sunday it will operate 11 to 6 and during the week 12 to 5. Tilden Park is a 90-minute drive.

Room reservations can be made by calling the Lions Gate at (916) 643-6222 or (866) 866-7100, faxing to (916) 643-9511, or writing 3410 Westover St., McClellan, CA 95652; please mention that you are attending the Steam Events National Summer Steamup to get the special group rate.