The Nevada Northern: The Railroad That Gave Itself Away
There is a plaque in the East Ely yards that tells the whole improbable story in one line: here, a railroad gave itself away. In 1983, when the copper mines that had kept the Nevada Northern Railway alive for three-quarters of a century finally closed, the owners did something almost unheard of in American industry. Instead of scrapping the locomotives and selling the buildings for salvage, they gifted the whole operation - engines, shops, yards, rolling stock, and thirty miles of track - to a preservation foundation. What you can visit today is not a railroad museum assembled from odds and ends. It is a complete, original, working mountain railroad, frozen in 1983 and running again.
Built to Haul Copper
The story starts in 1905, when the mines of the Robinson copper district needed a way out of the mountains. The Nevada Northern Railway was organized to connect Ely - then a town of a few hundred souls at 6,400 feet - with the main lines to the east and north. Crews laid track through some of the most remote country in the West, reaching the mines in 1907-08, and for the next seven decades the railroad did everything: ore trains down to the interchange, passenger trains, school trains, supply trains. When the mines were booming, the yards at East Ely ran around the clock.
The star of the show - then and now - is locomotive No. 40, a Baldwin-built 4-6-0 delivered to the railroad in July 1910. No. 40 spent fifty years hauling freight and passengers up and down the line, and after the great gift of 1983 she came back to life: restored, maintained right in the same brick shops where she was built, and today pulling excursion trains on the same roadbed the miners rode a century ago. How many places in America can you ride behind a locomotive on its own home rails, maintained in its own home shops? The list is very short.
What You Will Actually See
The East Ely Yards and Shops are a National Register Historic District, and walking them is like walking into a working 1950s railroad yard that someone tidied up just enough for company. The engine house still has its inspection pits and overhead belts. The machine shop's line shafts and tools are where they always were. The depot, the freight house, the coal dock, the water tank - all there, all original. The railroad claims some seventy historic buildings on fifty-plus acres, and the claim undersells it: the whole yard feels genuine because it is.
Excursion trains run on a seasonal schedule - steam in summer, vintage diesel much of the year - and the rides vary from short trips out of the East Ely depot to longer runs up toward the old mining town of McGill. Check the calendar before you go, because the railroad also runs special events: photographers' charters, holiday trains, and evening rides where they shut the yard lights down for stars. The crews are volunteers and professionals mixed, and every one of them can tell you stories about the men who worked these engines for real.
Tips from the Rig
A few practical notes for fellow RVers. The yard is a couple of miles from downtown Ely, so plan your day to catch both the morning yard tour and the afternoon train if you want the full experience. Elevation is 6,400 feet - the mornings are cool even in July. And if you like trains at all, book ahead: the steam excursions fill up in summer, and the caboose overnight (rustic: no power, no heat, bathroom across the yard) books out even further.
We went to Ely for the national park and stayed an extra day for this railroad. That extra day turned out to be the heart of the stop. There is something about a locomotive that has spent more than a century on the same thirty miles of track - it makes the whole idea of home rails feel real. The Nevada Northern gave itself away once, and the giving keeps on going.