Tag: vtrailroad

Press release from the Northern Nevada Railway Foundation. The first film has already been shown, but the second one is scheduled for tonight at Piper's Opera House.

The first Railway Reflections International Art Expo starts July 17, 2008, and runs through August 17. It will be a fun time for everyone and will benefit the reconstruction of the V & T Railroad from Virginia City to Carson City. It will start with the Artists and V.I.P. Reception on July 16 at the Nevada State Library and Archives.

The art exhibit features all of the entries and will be on display in the Nevada State Library and Archives from July 17 through August 17. All of the artwork, or copies of it, will be for sale.

The Film Festival will be held every Thursday night during the Art Expo at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City and will feature railroading films from the past.

“Union Pacific” was originally released in May of 1939 and starred Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck and will be the first film on July 17. We will have Steven Drew from the California State Railroad Museum, which is where a lot of the V&T equipment went to do that film, at the theater to introduce the film and give us some background.

We also have “Breakheart Pass” with Charles Bronson, Richard Crenna, Jill Ireland, and Charles Durning. Larry Jensen is the author of the book “Movie Railways” and will be at the theater to introduce this film from 1976.

Next on the list is “Emperor of the North” starring Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin. We may have a surprise guest to introduce this film which was originally released in May of 1973.

“Posse” is also on the list and stars Kirk Douglas, Bo Hopkins, and Bruce Dern. Bo will be in Reno for the Hot August Nights festival and may be at the theater to introduce the film. “Posse” was originally released in June of 1975.

The last movie on the list is “Carson City” starring Randolph Scott, Lucille Norman, and Raymond Massey. It is a story about building the V&T Railroad from Carson City to Virginia City. Yes, they do it backwards but it is still a good movie. It was originally released in June of 1952.

We also have a Railroad Memorabilia Show and Sale scheduled for July 26th and 27th in the Nevada State Library Gallery. Railroad antiques and collectibles will be on display and for sale featuring locks, lanterns, badges, china, silverware, timetables, linens, signs, and much more. Admission is free.

“The Perils of Pusher” is a comedy-melodrama that will be performed by the Misfits Theater Group at the Historic Odeon Hall & Saloon in nearby Dayton, also on July 26th and 27th.

The Governor’s Gala is a black-tie celebration and fundraiser, including cocktails, dinner, and entertainment, to be held at the Governor’s Mansion on August 6.

August 8 is the date for our Golf Tournament and Luau at the Eagle Valley Golf Course. There will be competitive play for golfers (and duffers) during the day and a Luau celebration (everyone welcome) afterwards.

Ales for Rails will be held August 10 in Fuji Park on the south end of Carson City. We will feature beer tasting, barbeque, and bands. It will be a day to relax and have fun. Sponsored by Bodine’s Casino.

Eastern Fare Meets Western Trains will be our last event on August 17 at the Nevada State Railroad Museum. This is the site of the closing dinner that will showcase the area’s 16 Asian restaurants. Lecture and train rides are included.

All of this adds up to a busy and fun schedule for our first Railway Reflections International Art Expo and we are looking forward to seeing as many of you as we can. Stop by and see us if you get a chance and don’t miss this exciting event.

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.

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.

The Nevada Appeal has two photos of the V&T Railroad construction.

We went for a bike ride on the V&T Bike Path yesterday, in west Carson City. We just bought new bikes a couple of weeks ago, and we're trying to get out and ride more, but with both of us working all the time it can be tough. But we have the little kid trailer and everything, so when we make it it's fun.

The V&T Bike Path is pretty new; it was re-graded and paved just not even five years ago. But its story goes back much further than that. The effort to get take a dirt path that ran through the area and improve it to make it bike-friendly had been in the works since the mid 90s. It is one component of a bike path that spans the entire west side, from the base of C Hill all the way north to the top of the hill at Lakeview. Much of the south side of the path follows existing streets. This section goes off on its own through the dirt and sagebrush.

But the history goes back even further than that. The reason it's called the V&T Bike Path is that it follows faithfully the old railbed that the Virginia and Truckee Railroad used to climb out of the Eagle Valley on its way to Reno. When you're cycling or walking along this path, you're following the ghosts of countless old steamers that traveled this route for nearly 80 years. The tracks were pulled up in 1950, and the route remained a dirt trail for another 50 years until it was paved in 2003.

The V&T steaming up what is now Longview Way, near the south entrance to the bike path.

Below, a few more shots from the trail. These were all taken with my camera phone, which casts kind of a sickly pallor over everything.

The southern entrance to the bike path is at the corner of Wellington and Ash Canyon Roads. There is no parking at this end.

Someone built some sweet jumps along the way.

The trail crosses the Vicee Canyon drainage, where a lot of work has been done to try to keep the stream within its banks. This bubbling trickle of snowmelt is a nice break from the dirt and sagebrush.

The bike path stretches from Ash Canyon Road, at Wellington, to Murphy Drive behind Western Nevada College. You can see a map of the route here. There is also a post about it by real cyclists at Cycling Carson City.

Dreaming of public transportation between Carson City and Reno. How likely is a light rail train route between the two cities?

Besides, he said, in cities that have modern light rail, the light rail itself becomes an attraction that draws visitors to the city. So let’s take a journey back to the future. You step on a train (or BRT) in Carson, turn on the laptop, and before you know it you’re in Reno. On Sunday you take the kids on the train to Washoe Valley for a picnic. Tourists arrive at the Reno Amtrak station and take light rail to the interesting, restored, walkable downtown Carson City. Why not? It could happen.

If it wasn't so expensive to lay rails, it might work. But the article refers to the Phoenix light rail, which is coming in with a bill of $1.6 billion for 20 miles of rail. That's lunacy. Why does it have to be so much? And look at the price tag to rebuild the V&T; $50 million and counting. Just to re-lay rails on a route that's already graded. Maybe the difference is that nowadays we're not paying the Chinese a dollar a day to build railroads, but it still seems like these prices are way out of line for what the finished product is.

Here's a movie of the Sacramento light rail system.

The first 18 miles of this cost $176 million in 1987. So why have prices jumped tenfold since then?

Crossposted from the WNHPC Blog:

From Hart Corbett comes this photo of Lucius Beebe, taken in 1949 by his father, William C. Corbett. The Corbetts are descendants of one of Carson City's pioneer families, and although they no longer live in town they still maintain ties to Carson.

Lucius Beebe here is standing in front of his private rail car, the "Gold Coast". In 1949 he was living in this car, parked under some cottonwoods in the V&T yards, while writing a book about the Virginia and Truckee Railroad. William and Hart Corbett had come to town Memorial Day weekend to ride a special V&T excursion train from Reno to Minden, and ran into Beebe while stopped at Carson City.

In the Nevada Appeal: Modern equipment moves the V&T along. This story chronicles the track-laying gangs that are hard at work up on the Comstock laying rails for the rejuvenated Virginia and Truckee Railroad. Phase 2 of the project has been going on for a few years now, working on digging out the caved-in American Flat tunnel and regrading the old roadbed to prepare it for rails. Now they're throwing down ties and rails at a regular rate, moving along at 750 feet per day. Of course you could compare that to the laying of the Central Pacific railroad across the salt flats of Utah 140 years ago, which topped out at ten miles per day. Or even the original V&T, which in 1869 was surveyed, graded, tracked, and had trains running on the rails all in less than a year. The actual laying of the tracks consisted of about six weeks of work, with two crews working simultaneously, one from Carson and one from Virginia. Of course back then they were using Chinese labor that they could push to work 12-14 hours a day, with little thought given to safety. There was also the economic impetus of thousands of tons of ore sitting at Virginia City, just waiting for the railroad to be completed so it could start moving. There's less incentive to get the job done this time, so nobody blinks at the more leisurly pace that this whole project is running at.

This current flurry of track laying will bring the railroad right to the outside edges of Mound House, at the bottom of the famous twists and turns in the track that gave the V&T the nickname "the crookedest short line in the world". After that there are still several more phases left to this project; running the rails up to Hwy 50, installing the bridge over Hwy 50, taking the track down another drop in elevation to the bottom of the Carson River Canyon, and then running along the banks of the river to the railroad's final terminus on the outskirts of Carson City.

I found a couple of links to sites about the Virginia & Truckee Railroad:

carsoncarshops.com is mostly devoted to replicating the V&T Railroad within the Trainz Railroad Simulator computer game. But they do have a section on their site called the "Ghosts of the V & T", with photos showing where the remnants of the V&T still are in the Carson area.

vtlyon.org is home to an effort to build a real-life, full-size replica of the first V&T Engine, #1 Lyon. The Lyon was built in 1869 and was the first locomotive to run on the V&T. It was a small engine, and in just a few years it was relegated to yard duty. In 1879, after just 10 years, it was taken out of service and put into storage. And while some railroads will keep their first engine around as a keepsake (Central Pacific #1 is the centerpiece of the California State Railroad Museum, for example), V&T #1 was allowed to rust and was cut up for scrap sometime before the turn of the 1900s. Now a group from the Midwest is trying to build a replica of the Lyon, from scratch. They seem to be making good progress, looking at their site.

Also, virginiaandtruckee.com, which is a bottomless fount of V&T information that I'm going to br cribbing from a lot as I fill out the V&T section on Carsonpedia.

On May 1, 1950, V&T Engine #26 finished its daily run from Reno to Carson City and Minden and back, and was eased backwards into the Reno enginehouse near the banks of the Truckee River. The crew went through their normal routine of shutting her down, and headed home to rest up for the next day's run. The V&T was in its last days, and the line was scheduled to be shut down at the end of the month. #26 only had a few more weeks service ahead of her before she was to be put out to pasture and, most likely, dismantled for scrap. The best she could hope for, probably, would be to be placed in a park or at the state museum, on display as one of the few remaining relics of the glory days of the Virginia and Truckee. No matter what, her days of active service were almost over.

Half an hour after the doors of the old wooden enginehouse were locked, a fire alarm went up on the east side of Reno. Firefighters arrived to find the enginehouse engulfed in flames, with Engine 26 still stowed away inside. Some glowing ember or spark from the engine must have made its way into some flammable material left around the shop, and ignited the blaze. Firefighters did their best, but it was too late. The enginehouse was completely destroyed, and the engine reduced to a charred pile of scrap. Sentimentalists surmised that Engine 26, knowing of her fate, decided to go out in the most spectacular way possible.

Photographer Bill Beatty had taken pictures of the engine being put away for the night, so he was still close by and able to come back and take this dramatic photo.

More photos of the engine, and the Reno enginehouse, can be found at the WNHPC.