Tag: vtrailroad

The Virginia and Truckee Railroad has been running great all summer. Ever since opening weekend on Memorial Day they've been selling out most of the trains, at least the round-trip trains from Carson to Virginia and back. The one-way trips are still not selling very well, but those trips are necessary deadheads that get the train from the enginehouse to the depot, and any money they make on them is gravy. Probably gravy they had been counting on when they made their budgets, but if they ever end up building shop facilities at the Carson City end of the tracks the need for those one-way trips will go away.

Anyway, with sales so strong, they decided to extend the running season for the V&T this year. Originally the last train was supposed to run on Nevada Day weekend, at the end of October. But they've just announced that they're adding six extra weekends, more trains to provide extra capacity so more people can ride (and so they can bring in more money).

They've also added a new trip to their options, an additional run that leaves after the train gets back from Virginia City on Saturday. It's called "Colors In The Canyon", and it heads the other direction from Eastgate Depot. It uses the new tracks the run down into the Carson River Canyon, and provides a 45 minute trip to the river and back, showing the fall colors along the way. Although I've been along that route, and there's not a lot of trees to speak of. But maybe we can watch the sagebrush turn from green to a duller green.

Joking aside, this seems like a good option for them to add a trip into the canyon. The price is a lot lower than any of their other options too, at $15. Although that's still more than the Virginia City to Gold Hill run, which at $10 is the best deal around, as well as the most scenic. This trip through the canyon is supposed to be scenic too, but the truth is that over half of this trip is time you spend just getting down into the canyon. From what I understand, the track ends almost as soon as you catch sight of the river. This might be a more viable option when the tracks are finished all the way through the entire canyon, but right now it seems a little overpriced for what you get.

So I'm glad to see that the V&T is doing well enough to add these runs, and that they're still selling out a lot of their weekend trips. This is the second year of the experiment, to find out how much demand there really is for these train trips. It's heartening to know that we haven't run out of people willing to pay $48 a head yet. It would be interesting to find out how many second-time riders there are on these trains, or if the line of people who want to ride it once because they're curious just hasn't run out yet.

Locomotive #18 used to run on the McCloud River Railroad in northern California. In 2005 it was bought by the Nevada Commission for the Reconstruction of the V&T Railway to run from Carson City to Virginia City, even though they didn't have any tracks at the time. So they sent the engine to the Sierra Railroad in central California to hold onto it for them.

Finally last year, in 2009, the tracks were finished and the engine came to Carson City. But first there were some repairs that needed to be made before it could be used for regular service, and then this spring it was leased to a film company to be used in a Hollywood movie (Water For Elephants, coming to theaters in 2011). Now, at long last, the engine is back in Nevada and in good running order, and is ready to fulfill its purpose of hauling passengers along the Virginia and Truckee rails.

Today, July 24, 2010, was the first day the engine was in service. These are photos of the engine and passenger cars at the station.

Flickr user AgentADQ has put up some pictures of the July 4th fireworks show in Carson City this year.

Photo by Flickr user AgentADQ

There are also pictures of the V&T running up on the Comstock, and the Nevada State Railroad Museum from that same day.

Photo by Flickr user AgentADQ

For more, go see the whole set.

The 4th of July is always a big weekend at the Nevada State Railroad Museum. That's when they pull their special collections out into the sunlight, like V&T Engine #22, "The Inyo", one of the oldest running steam locomotives in the country. This year they have a new star to bring out, the McKeen Motor Car that they just spent 14 years fixing up. And they have other running locomotives, #25 and #8, although #8 has been down for repairs for a couple of years now. Saturday I went down to the museum and got pictures of all the various equipment they had on display.

Saturday was the first scheduled V&T trip of the 2010 season. I went down to Eastgate Station to see the train off. There wasn't a lot of fanfare except for a few people in costume and one guy with a rifle that shot off a couple of reports as the train left. The train seemed to be full, though, so I that's good. I'm not sure if they'll be able to sell out every weekend, though, which is what they need to do to make any money on this.

Here are some photos of the engine starting its long trip uphill.

This weekend is the first official runs of the V&T Railroad between Carson City and Virginia City. On Saturday morning steam engine #29 will pull into Eastgate Station to kick off the 2010 season. It's not the actual first train of the year, there have been a couple of special excursions already. But this is the first big one that you can walk up and buy tickets for. This year they decided to go after an aggressive schedule, with steam trains on both Saturday and Sunday every week, and diesel trains on Thursday and Friday. They've slowly been backing away from that plan, though, due to lack of interest from the actual paying public. They have already canceled all of the Thursday diesel runs, just kind of quietly removing them from their website. The first run of the year was actually supposed to be tomorrow, a Thursday morning diesel trip. But then they canceled all the Thursday diesel trips, and then they canceled this Friday's diesel trip, and that brings us to Saturday's steam trip as the first one of the year.

Virginiatruckeerailway.com has been keeping track of this whole roller coaster over the weeks, and also keeping track of how many tickets are being sold. He makes the point that Saturday's trip should have been sold out for weeks now, if not months, just because it's the first trip of the year and everyone would want to get on that one. But still, he points out, fewer than half of the tickets for that trip have been pre-sold. Which is good news for people who just want to go down and buy tickets at the station that morning, but not good for anyone who wants to see this train be a success. Also disturbing is the 4th of July train, which should also be close to sold out by now but has only sold 6 tickets.

The Carson City Convention & Visitors Bureau is also having a contest to win a pair of tickets on the train this summer. So that will be at least two riders.

Updated: more videos added to the end.

Sunday was the big unveiling of the McKeen Motor Car at the Nevada State Railroad Museum. The car has been in the restoration shop for 14 years and now is all done and ready to take to public on rides. But more than that, May 9th was also the 100th anniversary of when the car first arrived in Carson City.

100 years ago the V&T bought this car as a cheap replacement to running their steam trains every day. It lasted 35 years, but eventually was retired in 1945. It spent several years as a diner in Carson City, then was used as part of a plumbing store in south Carson. In 1996 it was uprooted and dragged here to the museum, and ever since then they've been rebuilding it. Now it's finally done, and seriously looks as good as the day it was built.

I stopped by the railroad museum for a bit on Sunday, long enough to see the car run around the tracks a couple of times. But then they stopped operations for an hour so they could give speeches and have a ceremony and break champagne over the bow. I checked and the tickets were all sold out until later in the afternoon, so I didn't get a chance to ride. But I did grab this video of it cruising down the line.

Even though I wasn't able to ride, YouTube user ferroequine was and posted this video of a trip around the circle.

It was a big event at the Railroad Museum. There were speeches given, a choir was singing, and there were hot dogs and hamburgers. Steam engine #25 was even brought out and parked at the station, though it wasn't giving rides. We climbed up and talked to the engine crew, and they said they were just sitting there all day, with the smallest fire and the lowest steam pressure possible, killing time and adding atmosphere. It's a rare day when the steam engines at the museum aren't the star of the show, but that's how it was on Sunday.

What happens now isn't clear. They spent all this time rebuilding the McKeen car, and you know they want to put it on display and bring it out for rides. But I don't think they have any firm plans to do either yet. Their schedule only calls for the standard summer schedule of operating the little green motor car on most weekends, with steam coming out on a few select holidays. The advantage of the McKeen car, though, is that it's easy to fire it up and bring it out with a small crew, much easier than any of the steam engines. So I wouldn't be surprised to see it at least parked outside when the museum is having a big weekend, and maybe on the Fourth of July have it running around the track.

Here are some more pictures.

Update: More movies.

The new turntable at the Nevada State Railroad Museum was assembled earlier this week. It's looking good, but they still have a little more work to go before it's ready. Not all the truss rods are in yet.

They're bringing this in just under the wire. Sunday's a big day at the museum, and they're going to need the turntable to get the equipment out onto the main line. The big unveiling of the McKeen motor car relies on them finishing on time. Here's a video about the McKeen that someone on YouTube put together:

VisitCarsonCity.com reports that a new diesel engine has been delivered to the V&T Railroad, freshly purchased from Montana. This is the second diesel engine on the Comstock, and it was brought in to handle the increased train load this summer. The V&T will be offering Carson-to-Virginia diesel trips every Thursday and Friday, on top of the usual Virginia-to-Gold Hill trips they run 7 days a week. Bringing this engine online means they'll be able to handle all these trips easily. And this is in addition to the two steam locomotives they have, both #29 which has been running up there for over 30 years, and #18 which just arrived last year and is currently in the shop being readied for service.

The crew at the Nevada State Railroad Museum has taken on an ambitious project - to rebuild the turntable at the museum in just a few weeks. The turntable sits right outside their main buildings, and without it in operation none of their locomotives and other equipment can get out onto the main track. It needed to be rebuilt, though, since I believe it was still the original turntable from when the museum opened about 30 years ago, and in this harsh Nevada climate things that are made of wood don't last long. Especially when you're expecting it to hold a 40-ton locomotive.

There is an extra urgency to this project, since they have a pretty firm deadline of May 9th to get the new turntable operational. That's the day the McKeen Motor Car makes its public debut, with a big ceremony and public rides around the museum's track. The problem is, the McKeen right now is on the other side of the turntable, so if it's not ready by then the big day will be kind of a dud. Says Wendell Huffman of the museum, "After 25+ years in the Nevada weather, the old table was so warped and broken that it barely functioned. Everything now depends upon the completion of the new table by the 9th. We believe we'll make it, but are enjoying the suspense nevertheless."

The old turntable in action