Nevada Northern 100yrs old...

Nevada Northern Railway Hits The 100 Year Mark
Today (Friday 09/29/06) marks the centennial of the arrival of the Nevada Northern Railway in Ely: a transportation corridor of steel rails four-feet, eight-and-one-half inches wide-connecting the early, twentieth-century, White Pine County frontier with the transcontinental railroad system.
The Nevada Northern was a key element ensuring the financial feasibility of mining, milling, and smelting the great porphyry copper deposits of this geographically isolated region, and which, over the better part of the next eight decades, profoundly influenced the economic, civic, and cultural development of the region-and continues to present day.
The individual largely responsible for initiating the transformation of White Pine County into a worldwide giant of industrial copper mining was Mark Lawrence Requa. Born in Virginia City in 1866, the son of Isaac Lawrence Requa, a prominent figure in the Comstock mining region, and Sarah J. (Mower) Requa, educated at Yale, he was president of the Eureka & Palisade Railroad by 1897 overseeing its reorganization through bankruptcy proceedings. With a background in both mining and railroad transportation, the low-grade, copper deposits in the Robinson Mining district drew his attention.
Initially seeking revenue for his E&P Railway through additional mining revenue, Requa's genius was recognizing the potential of the low-grade, copper deposits of the Robinson district in light of the burgeoning electrical age. While Daniel C. Jackling's attempts at profitably mining similar deposits in Utah's Bingham Canyon were at an embryonic stage, Requa monitored the progress in Utah, performed his own experimental tests on local ores, and never wavered in his belief that successful mining in the Robinson district also demanded economical rail transportation between mine and mill, and thence to the nation.
Requa's analysis detailing the extent, richness, and economic feasibility of mining the ore bodies proved exceedingly accurate. However, his projections for the completion of the Nevada Northern between Omar (later Cobre) and Ely proved markedly optimistic and patently mistaken. Nevertheless, uncontrollable circumstances of nature proved the culprit that conspired to make his initial projection that, with grading underway by early September 1905 construction crews would celebrate the New Year holiday in White Pine County's seat, woefully inaccurate. The most severe winter in twenty years coupled with shortages of rail, equipment, and manpower forced construction to a standstill between late December 1905 and early March 1906. Then the Great San Francisco earthquake of April 1906 further depleted construction personnel as many left to lend assistance to the devastated populace of the Bay Area.
Rapid progress on the line followed through the spring and summer of 1906 and completion of the Nevada Northern to Ely was finally set for the weekend of September 29-30. Even as crews were frantically laying the last rails to the hastily erected temporary depot at the corner of Murry and Garden Streets, the five hundred residents of Ely hosted celebrants almost seven-times their number who converged on the region to welcome the railway into town. A Nevada Northern special whisked hundreds of visitors from outlying regions to the festivities. The first section from Salt Lake City conveyed residents of Zion in an array of passenger cars of including five, luxury Pullman sleepers, three tourist sleepers, and a private car transporting Mr. Requa, railway management, and guests. The second section, originating in Ogden, Utah, awaited a contingent of cars bearing political dignitaries traveling from Carson City to Cobre via the Southern Pacific, and, delayed by repeated problems with the steam locomotive, arrived in Ely some hours behind schedule.
Nevertheless, shortly after three o'clock on that bright, autumn afternoon, now a century past, at a site slightly west of the county courthouse, Mark Requa raised a steel maul and, to the accompaniment of the Star Spangled Banner executed by Held's Military Band, drove the ceremonial last spike-fashioned of copper from local Ruth mine ore. It was done.
Requa realized neither the future completion of the railroad line to the mines near Ruth and the reduction works at McGill nor the first shipment of blister copper in 1908. Corporate maneuvers by the Guggenheim's, then in control of the district, included Requa's “retirement” by December 1906. Nevertheless, it was Requa's vision that is largely responsible for the development of White Pine County's twentieth-century, copper mining enterprise that proved to exceed the wealth of the infamous Comstock Lode, developed towns and settlements throughout the region by providing jobs and wages for generations of workers, and continues today through active mining. Mark Requa's legacy also continues today through the two local museums dedicated to preserving and interpreting the rich heritage of this twentieth-century mining frontier of the West: the East Ely Railroad Depot Museum and the Nevada Northern Railway Museum.
Mark Requa, as organizer and founder of both the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. and the Nevada Northern Railway, ensured the end of Ely and surroundings as an isolated frontier. Therefore, as the pioneers of Ely and White Pine County along with their welcomed Utah visitors deemed befitting and appropriate a century past and as further trumpeted in the headline of the White Pine News, let us remember him on this centennial anniversary echoing three cheers for his foresight, perseverance, and resolve: Rah! Rah! Rah! Requa! - Keith Albrandt, The Ely Times

 

From their website it looks like they have 2 operating steamers, a 2-8-0 and a Ten-wheeler.
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net/locorental/engine_rental.htm

Their schedule shows a centennial celebration, but I didn't dig deep enough to find any details. Their advertisement in Classic Trains also mentions a centennial celebration.

It's on my list of places to see.

Regards

Ed

 

My buddy was just in Ely a couple weeks ago. RS3 is still working. I believe the 70 tonners are now on the Modesto & Empire Traction in Modesto, CA. Believe the blue and white SD is a 7 and the original NN one but repainted. For four bucks you have free reign to walk around the yard and take pics.

 

Funny enough, I just got around to reading my October issue of Trains Magazine. They have a nice 8 page article on the Nevada Northern. A couple of nice pictures of both #40 and #93, route map, and a lot about the history of the road.

Regards

Ed

 

John- The one and only diesel the Nevada Northern ever owned (SD-7 #401) is working a coal fired power plant over at Delta, UT. At last report it did still wear the full NN paint scheme.

The blue and yellow diesel on the NN is a former SP SD-9, one of five that BHP Nevada Rail brought in when they ran the railroad from 1995-1999. BHP repainted two of them to these colors, while the other three remained in SP paint. The museum inherited all five when BHP shut down, with three of them sold off to the Colorado, Kansas & Pacific Railroad by the following spring. BHP Nevada Rail also used the ex-Magma RS-3 and the two 70-tonners; you are correct that the 70-tonners are now on the M&ET, while the RS-3 remains stored. The museum has two Alco RS units that they do use, both of which are native (or nearly so) to the Kennecott Nevada Mines division. They also have two or three Baldwin switchers and a GE 25-ton switcher, along with two electric locomotives that used to switch the Kennecott smelter at McGill and a huge collection of rolling stock, including a rotary snow plow and a steam powered wrecker that are both native to this operation. The museum put the wrecker back into service earlier this year with the help of a major preservation grant the museum won from Trains Magazine/Kalmbach Publishing two or three years ago.

Just about anything that anyone would ever want to know about the Nevada Northern can be found on Keith Albrandt's fine website:

http://nn.railfan.net

You will find a few pictures taken by my wife and I scattered here and there on the pages.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

 

historical landmark...

Jeff, thanks for clearing up the history on that unit. Seen a slide of the "new" SD on ebay recently. Thought they'd repainted it. Guess not.

now for more news...


Ely Railway Complex Declared Historic Landmark
ELY, NV -- Nevada Northern Railway's East Ely Yards have been declared a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
The site joins the Hoover Dam, Leonard Rockshelter, Fort Churchill, Fort Ruby, Newlands Mansion, and the Comstock Historic District as Nevada National Historic Landmark sites.
"The Nevada Northern Railway complex is the last remaining complete standard-gauge railroad in the United States," said Ron James, State Historic Preservation officer. "It's more remarkable when you consider all the railroad cars, equipment, rail lines and even company records are all still there in Ely."
The railway was built in 1905 to transport ore from the Nevada Consolidated Copper Co. mines west of Ely to the Central Pacific Railroad line east of Wells. It also served the copper smelting plant at McGill north of Ely.
The rail line was officially abandoned in 1987. The Nevada Northern Railway Museum took ownership of the railroad complex in 2000. The listing will make the Nevada Northern Railway Complex eligible for special programs including Save America's Treasure's grants. - The Nevada Appeal

 

and still more news....

LS Power, SPR May Spend Up To $100 Million On NNRy
ELY, NY -- Two competing power companies, LS Power and Sierra Pacific Resources (SPR), are willing to jointly spend up to $100 million to restore much of the railroad line stretching north of Ely.
LS Power and SPR both hope to construct coal-fired power plants north of Ely. The plants would need to use the now-defunct segment of rail line to transport coal daily through a junction connecting to a transcontinental Union Pacific rail line at Cobre about 130 miles north of Ely.
The city has made it a policy not to favor one company over the other, so now the two companies plan to work together within the scope of a joint development agreement. The main goals of the agreement are to obtain a clear title on the railroad for Ely despite a pending lawsuit, and to conduct all necessary permitting, design and engineering work for rehabilitation of the railroad. The city council planned to adopt the agreement last night.
Estimates range from $50 to $100 million for the cost to physically repair the track the coal-fired plants would need. That section of track is called the coal segment. The price range will be refined by a planned cost estimate. In the latest version of a proposed agreement, SPR would end up paying slightly more than half, at around 58 percent of that cost since its proposed plant site is further south and would use a longer segment of the rail line.
Each company would also pay up to $50,000 each to defray settlement costs for a lawsuit filed by V&S Railway attempting to seize the line for itself. That lawsuit will be continued until next spring.
The agreement plans for an analysis and timetable of required tasks for restoration the coal segment to Class III Federal Railroad Administration standards to be completed by Nov. 16. The plan would be finalized by March 1, 2007 with the coal segment targeted for operation by 2009.
After debate over who would control the project, it was decided each company would hire a project manager. The project managers would work together coordinating permitting, design and engineering efforts for rehabilitation of the line. In case of a dispute, an independent advisor hired jointly by the companies would issue an opinion. A city representative would “decide the issue” if the independent advisor's opinion was not satisfactory to the project managers.
The project managers would also help the city repair the southernmost segment of track -- the part the power plants wouldn't need to use to transport coal. They would do this by permitting, designing and engineering the required activities. They would also utilize $2,000,000 in grants the city holds for the rail line. The companies would pitch in $200,000 each for development of the length of rail line south of the coal segment if a railroad operator doesn't offer funding by the time the power plants are permitted and approved.
“When this is all said and done, what we should have is a rail line that can go from the mine all the way to Shafter,” NNRy Director Mark Bassett said in a telephone interview. Repairing the line would benefit commerce by allowing trains to ship freight in mass quantities more easily to and from the rest of the world, Bassett said. This is due to “intermodal” freight containers that are the same exact size for rail, air and ship transportation across the world, he added.
“As a planet, we can't agree on much of anything, but the one thing we have agreed on is the size of freight containers,” he added. “It can literally be our lifeline, because these things are completely and totally interchangeable... We've lost out on a couple of businesses that wanted to locate in Ely because they needed rail service.”
The agreement makes it clear that any city freight operations would have to be scheduled around the companies' coal trains. The city would grant “perpetual and unlimited” trackage rights of the coal segment to the companies. But the agreement also allows for fees that would provide “a reasonable profit to the city.”
LS Power first brought a proposal to the City of Ely two weeks ago. The proposal originally contained one section that would require the city not to negotiate or enter into any agreement with a third party regarding development of the railroad.
Sierra Pacific Power representatives, who also plan to construct a coal-fired power plant north of Ely, took exception with exclusive language in the agreement.
City officials have expressed concern that they did not want one power plant company to try to use the railroad to gain leverage over the other. The groups modified the language of the agreement and held a special advisory-type meeting on Thursday, Oct. 5 to continue discussions with LS Power, Sierra Pacific and the NNRy Board of Directors.
“We do have two companies competing for this line,” Ely City Councilman Shane Bybee said last Thursday. “The best case scenario is to keep you both equally disappointed with our decisions.”
The most controversial item in the joint development agreement was the project manager position. There was at first only one project manager mentioned in the agreement. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that whoever acted as, controlled or selected the project manager would have more control of the railroad development project.
LS Power said it was in a better position to serve as the project manager since it has been involved in the permitting and planning process longer.
LS Power filed an application for its coal-fired plant with the Bureau of Land Management on Feb. 17, 2004. Sierra Pacific filed its application over a year and a half later with the BLM on June 14 of this year. The draft Environmental Impact Statement for LS Power's plans is expected in January 2007, while Sierra Pacific's application is still waiting to get on the federal register, according to the BLM.
Sierra Pacific said it wanted an independent project manager, and that LS shouldn't be in charge of the project.
LS Power said an independent project manager would cause delay; the three groups would have to pick someone they could each be comfortable with, train them and get them up to speed on the project.
When you outsource project management, “that firm does not have skin in the game,” LS Power Director of Project Development Eric Crawford said last Thursday. “They're there to get a paycheck.”
Differences in business philosophy were discussed during arguments last Thursday about the project manager position. While the two companies were jousting over who would lead development of the railroad, City Attorney Richard Sears made it clear he would try to protect the city's interests above all else.
“The philosophy here is going to be the city's philosophy,” Sears said to the power companies last Thursday. “It's not your philosophy that matters. It's the city's interest that we really want you to push forward, okay, despite what your various philosophies are. That's the point... and you'll do that.”
He drafted one paragraph in the agreement stating that the intent of the agreement is to “assist the city” rehabilitate the railroad in “the most efficient and cost effective manner.”
“I'm going to be jumping up and down to make certain that whoever does it conforms to (paragraph) 3B,” Sears said. “I'm not hesitant to go sue somebody's keister if it appears to me that they are not operating according to that paragraph.” As of the newspaper's deadline, the agreement was planned to be adopted Thursday night. - Pete Fowler, The Ely Times

 

The local groups who want to see the railroad restored have been fighting two condemnation lawsuits filed by salvage firms for the last 2-3 years. The suits seek to take ownership of the railroad line by the condemnation process. So far the locals seem to be winning, but my understanding is that no final rulings have been issued yet.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV