We arrived at the east side of the tunnel and all detrained for the photo runby which would be along the highway. I did not change my photo location.
The scene after we arrived.
Nevada Northern baggage/railway post office car 20.
Nevada Northern 2-8-0 93 before it backed the train through the tunnel.
The reverse move.
Photo runby seven.
The reverse move.
Smoke escaping the tunnel portal.
Photo runby eight. Elizabeth called her mother in Victoria, British Columbia and I called Robin in Huntington Beach so they could both hear the sounds of Nevada Northern 93 exiting the tunnel in all its glory. Both were very impressed by this.
The reverse move.
Photo runby nine.
This tunnel served as a fallout shelter for the Town of Ely in case of a nuclear attack but notice the lingering smoke. The train went to the Lackawanna grade crossing where we did the last runbys of the morning, and for Elizabeth I, the last runbys of the day.
Our train after all the photographers had detrained.
The reverse move.
Photo runby ten.
The reverse move.
Photo runby eleven. The train then took us all back to the East Ely station. As I detrained, we said goodbye to the staff and told them we were done for the day as we had a drive ahead of us. I told them I would photograph the wrecking crane that had been spotted at the coaling tower.
On the way there, I shot Jordan spreader 70 built by O.F. Jordan Company in 1948.
Nevada Northern wrecking crane A, built by Industrial Works in 1907, and tool car A1.
Nevada Northern tool car A1 built 1907 and converted from a dump car in 1938.
Nevada Northern wrecking crane A built 1907 with a 100 ton capacity.
One last shot of Nevada Northern wrecking crane A and tool car A1. Elizabeth and I would like to thank the Nevada Northern Railway and staff with volunteers for an excellent event they put on for all of the photographers. We were extremely impressed by the locations, professionalism and knowledge the staff had in dealing with the passengers. It had been a very memorable three days of fabulous photography and I highly recommend any photographer who would like to capture steam action at its best to participate in a photo charter on the Nevada Northern Railway. You certainly will get your money's worth.
The drive to PiocheWe left Ely after stopping for lunch at Subway and drove east on US Highway 50 and 6.
Wheeler Peak is the tallest mountain in the Snake Range at 13,065 feet.
Dutch John Mountain, elevation 8,860 feet. When driving southbound on US 93, you can see a face looking at you until you get past the peak. We drove into Pioche.
We found a sign about the steam engine that is here in Pioche.
Chicago and North Western 2-6-0 279, a narrow gauge engine built by American Locomotive Company in 1912. It worked on a sixteen mile line between Fennimore and Woodman in Wisconsin. The line had very sharp curves unsuitable for standard gauging and remained narrow gauge until 1926, when it was abandoned. The following year, 279 was bought by the Pioche Pacific Railroad Company to serve on the Jackrabbit to Pioche line in Nevada. It was retired in 1939 and placed in storage at the Jackrabbit roundhouse then donated to the town of Pioche in 1957 and is on display under cover in Pioche Town Park.
Elizabeth checked us in to the Anasazi Dwelling room of the Overland Hotel and Saloon. We were immediately very impressed with the size and decor of this room. Each room in this hotel has its own theme. We will stay here again in the future for sure and did not expect such a nice and well-appointed hotel in a small town. After my Pittsburgh Penguins lost to the New York Islanders today, we went across the street to the Historic Silver Cafe for an early dinner. I had a French Dip sandwich and Elizabeth had a chicken salad. Both were excellent and hit the spot. We returned to our room and worked on the stories before calling it a night.
3/1/2021
We woke up early and checked things on the Internet and relaxed, then packed and took the laptops out to the car. At this point, the Historic Silver Cafe was just opening and we were their first customers of the day. We both had French Toast and sausage but Elizabeth had berries with hers and a hot chocolate. After breakfast, we checked out and dropped the key with a business card into the door slot. I drove us over to where Chris Parker had told us about a mine but could not get very close to it.
The Pioche Mill. We believe this was served by the Union Pacific Railroad at one time. I then drove us toward Caliente but had to make a stop in the canyon just north when I noticed something along the right-of-way.
This wooden trestle, and a steel trestle in Caliente, are the only two remaining of the Pioche Branch. You can see the right-of-way in several spots driving down US 93. From here we continued into Caliente, crossed the tracks and I took Elizabeth to the wonderful Union Pacific station in this town.
The 1923 Union Pacific station in Caliente.
The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities, via Las Vegas, Nevada. Incorporated in Utah in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line was largely the brainchild of William Andrews Clark, a Montana mining baron and United States Senator. Clark enlisted the help of Utah's U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns, mining magnate and newspaper man, to ensure the success of the line through Utah. Construction of the railroad's main line was completed in 1905. Company shareholders adopted the LA&SL name in 1916. The railway was also known by its official nickname, "The Salt Lake Route", and was sometimes informally referred to as "The Clark Road". The tracks are still in use by the modern Union Pacific Railroad, as the Caliente, Sharp, and Lynndyl Subdivisions.
The Nevada historical sign about the Caliente station.
This boxcar has a mural on one side and is blank on the other. It houses the Boxcar Museum.
Union Pacific caboose 24518, nee Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific 17100, built by International Car in 1966. Now the drive to the petrol station at the junction of US 93 and Interstate 15.
The drive to the Love petrol station. I drove us south down Interstate 15 to Baker.
The mountains northwest of Las Vegas. I drove us to Baker and we stopped for lunch at Arby's which was drive through only. We needed a place to eat and I found an excellent spot in Baker.
The former grade of the Tonapah and Tidewater Railroad in Baker.
Tonapah and Tidewater Railroad HistoryIn 1905, Francis Marion Smith immediately sent crews out to Las Vegas to begin construction of the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad. Grading was started on May 29, and by mid-July, about 12 miles of roadbed was graded. William Clark had tried constantly to discourage Smith from building his railroad, from raising rates for construction materials to consolidating the Nevada Rapid Transist Company and building an auto road from Las Vegas to Beatty. The sharpest point in the barb poked in Smith's side, was when he was openly denied by LA&SL railroad officials to allow the T&T grade to connect to their main line. Smith tried to get in contact with Clark to figure out what was going on, but Clark had completely evaded Smith by hiding out in Paris. There, Clark had came up with the idea of building his own railroad to the Nevada goldfields, which would come to be known as the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad. Despite Smith's disappointment, he held no resentment for Clark, and instead went to the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad to propose they use their stop at Ludlow, California as the T&T's new terminus. This was the perfect get-back at Clark's double-cross, for Clark and the Santa Fe were in direct competition to one another. Plus, building north of Ludlow would bring about more business opportunities for the T&T to profit from, as there were plenty of mines in the area where the Tonopah & Tidewater was planned to be built.
The biggest drawback, however, was that the railroad would be twice as long as it would have been if they built out of Las Vegas, about 200 miles distance. Francis Smith sold all of his Las Vegas railroad work, graded roadbed, property and supplies to Clark, and moved immediately to Ludlow and started building the T&T with new construction material provided by the Santa Fe. Starting construction in November, it soon got too hot for the railroad workers during the summer months. Water was the hardest to provide, but plenty of meat was made available by the butchers located in Daggett. The T&T construction crews eventually reached Crucero, California by 1906, where they had to cross over the mainline of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. An agreement was written by the T&T and the LA&SL to use Crucero as an interchange and crossover point between the two railroads, but it did not entirely suit either party. They eventually came to a mutual agreement, and the T&T construction crews pushed further north. The hardest part of building the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was going through the Amargosa Canyon. It took several thousand head of mules and men to blast their way through the canyon, and took nearly three years to get to the other end where Tecopa, California now stands. The Tonopah and Tidewater reached Death Valley Junction, California by 1907, the closest point to the Lila C. borax mine. Here, a branch line was built to the mine and trains immediately started transporting the borax to the Santa Fe.
The last spike was hammered into place at Gold Center, Nevada with no celebration, as the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad had already beat the T&T to Goldfield, and the financial panic of 1907 was severely crippling the operations of the gold mines. Nevertheless, the Tonopah and Tidewater was in a better position to be more profitable than the Las Vegas and Tonopah, and in 1908 merged with the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad to reach Goldfield, also connecting to Tonopah by way of the Tonopah and Goldfield Railroad. The T&T's rates were cut shorter than the LV&T, and passengers preferred the shorter route of the T&T over the LV&T as it was 100 miles shorter than it took to get to Los Angeles by the former. By the time World War I broke out, the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad was in a bad state. The United States Railroad Administration took over the T&T and the LV&T as with all the nation's railroads, but deemed the latter as an unnecessary route and had the LV&T taken up for scrap in 1918. The Lila C. mines eventually ran dry by 1913, and the T&T filed to extend their branchline to the new mines at Ryan, California (formerly Devar). However, with their mounting debt of over $4.4 million they were denied to do so by the ICC, and instead Pacific Coast Borax organized a new railroad, the three foot gauge Death Valley Railroad, to haul the ore from Ryan to the T&T at Death Valley Junction.
Elizabeth drove us home from Baker taking Interstate 15 to CA 215 to CA 91 and CA 55 to our home in Santa Ana, ending a fantastic trip to the Nevada Northern Winter Photo Spectacular.
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