Tag: virginiacity

Dennis Cassinelli's latest online article is titled Timber for the Comstock, and it covers the history of logging and timbering in Western Nevada in the 1800s. Virginia City gobbled up huge amounts of wood, both to build the buildings above ground, and to shore up the mines underground. As the riches of the Comstock were realized and increasing numbers of people swarmed the slopes of Mount Davidson, the lumber needs grew exponentially. Early miners were able to get by with cutting down the few native trees that grew on the Comstock, and using them to build simple shacks. But by the time the rush began all those trees had been wiped out, prompting the pioneers to look to the endless forests of the Sierra Nevada.

This brought up the question, though, of how to get the trees from the mountains to Virginia City. At first the loggers used the one natural tool they had been given, the Carson River. Trees were felled along the banks of the river in Alpine County, and floated all the way down to Empire City, where Dutch Nick built a mill to cut the logs into lumber. Other mills along the river soon followed. The wood then had to be hauled up the hill to Virginia City by wagon.

The cost and hassle of hauling the wood with large teams of oxen soon led to the first upgrade in the process; a railroad was built between Carson and Virginia, specifically for the purpose of hauling wood up and ore down, putting the wagons and teamsters out of business. The wood drives on the river soon became a thing of the past too, as most of the trees along the banks of the river had been cut down. So then they started cutting the trees at Lake Tahoe, and sending the logs rocketing downhill in a "V" flume. The largest of these operations was set up by Duane Bliss at Spooner Summit, with the flume following the present-day Hwy 50 down the hill and into Carson City. There the logs would be picked up by train to finish their journey.

By the end of the 19th century, nearly all the trees at Lake Tahoe had been chopped down. Which was fine, because Virginia City had run out of gold and silver so there was no more demand for lumber like in the old days. The mills were silenced and the flumes dismantled, and Tahoe's forests were left to regrow. A hundred years later these second-growth forests are overgrown and unhealthy, and a constant fire hazard. A testament to why clearcutting is a bad idea.

It's been said that "the Comstock lode was the tomb of the forests of Tahoe." Hundreds of millions of board feet of lumber went into the ground, never to be seen again. For more, you can read Dennis' article, as well as this piece by Julie Stone.

Hey, Carson City residents. You've paid over $20 million dollars into rebuilding the V&T Railroad, and up for a vote next month is a proposal to spend $10 million more. Now this is your money, your tax money, going into this project, so you might as well get something for free out of it. That's why the Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau has arranged for free train rides for Carson City residents during the month of October. Anyone who wants to head up the hill and grab a seat on the 4pm train is free to do so. It's normally a $9 fare to get on board. This deal is for Carson City residents only (so I'm disqualified since I live in Douglas County). I suppose you have to show a driver's license or something with your address on it to get the tickets. You can get them from the visitors center in the Railroad Museum parking lot, or up in Virginia City at the V&T ticket office.

The Nevada Appeal reports (twice, in fact) that the Sierra Railroad, the company that was chosen to be the operator for the new V&T line between Carson and Virginia, is in the process of being sold. And that the new prospective owner, Patriot Rail Corp, has no interest in providing passenger or tourist operations. If this is true, the V&T is kind of left in the lurch with lots of brand-new track and no one to run trains on it.

Now if only there was another option, another operator available, preferably one based locally, like in Virginia City, that could take over running trains on the new tracks. We'd probably never find anyone like that...

Last year the V&T bought a couple of new railroad cars to run in Virginia City. These cars are fully enclosed and decked out with upholstered seats, lighting, and heat. The first one arrived on the Comstock in July after being trucked across the country. They're going to be fixed up and run on special occasions, maybe even during the wintertime. These cold people below sure could have used one.

But anyway, the reason I'm writing about these new cars now is because I came across this video. The Comstock Historical Society drove out I-80 to meet the new car at the border and take some photos and video. Instead he ended up getting recruited to be a pilot car, and had to follow the car closely all the way back to VC. Once at its new home, the train car had to be lifted off the semi truck and placed on the rails. This video shows the whole process.

Kudos to the Storey County Sheriff’s Office for hiking up Mount Davidson to repaint the "V" that overlooks town. These letters don't maintain themselves, and it takes an organized group to get it together enough to schlep that paint up those steep hills. The "C" in Carson is well taken care of, and the "D" in Douglas is looking better after a few years of neglect. But the "V" hadn't been painted for eight years, and it was starting to look bad. So good job for those guys to go up there and give it a fresh coat of paint.

There have been a lot of cool videos of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad showing up on YouTube lately, most of them the work of Jim Lohse of the Virginia Truckee Railroad Historical Society. You can find most of the videos listed under the usernames livingsteam, virginiatruckee, and renorailfan. Some of the movies are like this one, riding the train along the new tracks that have been laid to American Flat.

Or the five-part series, that starts here, showing Locomotive #29 coming out of the shop earlier this summer to pull its first passengers in six years.

Jim also runs several websites dedicated to V&T history, like www.livingsteam.com, www.comstockhistoricalsociety.com, www.renorailfans.com and www.trainarts.com. There is lots more information there, more videos, as well as DVDs you can buy. He's doing a lot to bring the history of the V&T to the internet, a lot more than I've been able to accomplish so far. Maybe one day I'll catch up.

Thanks to the Carson Times I've learned about a new blog, that of Dennis Cassinelli. Titled the Chronicles of the Comstock, the blog is a reprint of the weekly columns he writes for the Comstock Chronicle newspaper. He just started publishing the columns online in June, so the archives are kind of small. But there are already articles about Virginia City's Great Fire, the lumbering operations at Lake Tahoe, and digging for bottles in Carson City. Good stuff.

I know I should be going through all my vacation pictures (4,000 pictures in 10 days. w00t!), but instead I've been going through pictures from 13 years ago. These photos from May of 1995 show the V&T Railroad in Virginia City running in the snow. Yes, it was one of those freak May snowstorms, and as you can see by the photos, it had almost all melted by late morning. But the pictures are still cool.

You know you want to see all 38 pictures at Flickr.

If you're looking for fireworks this 4th of July, you have plenty of options this year. The closest one to us, of course, will be in Carson City at Mills Park. After the debacle last year they're going to try again, and hopefully we'll get a full show this time around instead of the shortened mess that was last year's show. The fireworks start around 9:15. There's also a carnival going on at the park all weekend.

If you're not up for Carson City, here are the other options:

• Reno: Rancho San Rafael
• Sparks: Victorian Square
• Virginia City: Mark Twain Park (stay for the brushfires!)
• Truckee: at Donner Lake
• Lake Tahoe has several shows:
  • King’s Beach
  • Tahoe City
  • Incline Village
  • Squaw Valley (laser show)
  • and the big daddy of them all, Star Spangled Fourth at South Lake Tahoe

If you're going to Lake Tahoe, remember that alcohol is banned on most beaches. And they'll be gouging you big time on parking. If you can even find any.

Other Links:
www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080703/NEWS/221783369/
www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080703/NEWS/135392171/0/OPINION
blog.travelnevada.com/articles/fourth-of-july-in-reno-tahoe

Some good news coming out of Virginia City. After spending 7 years in the shop, Locomotive #29 of the V&T is all fixed and up and running again. That's an extraordinarily long time for an overhaul, but apparently it wasn't just a matter of doing some simple repairs, they had to make some upgrades to comply with stricter FRA regulations. That plus budget problems that they probably had, added up to a long hiatus.

And even now, the engine isn't out pulling trains daily. They ran it last weekend to shake it out and see how it performed, but they haven't put it into regular service yet. This is a big step forward for the railroad, though. We need steam in Virginia City. We're getting a little tired of that diesel engine.

Missing from the story, though, is news on the other steam engine they have up on the hill, #8. All these stories focus on #29, as well they should because it's the more elegant engine and it's been on the Comstock the longest. But #8 is also up there, sitting in the shop, inoperable, and nobody ever talks about it. Maybe they wanted to focus all their energy on #29 first, get it done, and now that they've done it they can shift their attention to #8. Because you have to admit, it's always better to have two locomotives running than it is one. Back in the late 90s, when I was riding the train all the time, both were operational, so they could put one in the shop for some minor repairs for a week or two and it wasn't a big deal. The other one would take over responsibilities for that time. That's what they'll need to get back to, and they'll get to get #8 running again to do it. But these new stories never even talk about #8, so I really don't know what's going on with it.