Steam & Excursion > Nevada Northern RR Visit Part 1

Hello, my wife and I visited the Nevada Northern RR in Ely, NV. and rode the train one day and then chased it the next. We arrived the afternoon of September 7th and then left the morning of September 10th after a tour of the engine shop. Although the ride from Ely to to Keystone was not that long, we both had fun. It was our first visit and over all it was a good time. I took a lot of pictures and I am working through them. It looks like I am going to have to do several posts. I picked the best and tried not to be repetitive. But I think you find them interesting. So here we go, starting in East Ely:

1. Recently refurbished Wig Wag signal. UP box car #172246 in the background.   9/7

2. # 93 backing up in East Ely yard after the run to Keystone.    9/7

3. Two crew members looking at something in the area of the main drive wheels.  9/7


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3. A closer look at the two crewmembers.   9/7

4. After turning at the wye at Keystone junction near Ruth, NV. The excursion train heads back to Ely. The yellow hill behind the train is called the Keystone dump. A waste pile from mining.   9/8

5. Participants in a bike race on route 50 headed towards Ely.   9/8


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7. The excursion train exits a small tunnel headed back to Ely.   9/8

8. The excursion train exits a small tunnel headed back to Ely. Fireman shoveling coal.   9/8

9. The Rockin & Rolling Geology train, which we rode, sits ready to board at the station. Late afternoon Sept. 8th


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10. #93's Builders plate   9/8

11. Sheffield handcar.   9/8

12. The Rockin & Rolling Geology train, which we rode, sits ready to board at the station as the handcar works its way back.    9/8


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13. One of the geologists that rode on our train explains some of the geology of the area before our train ride.   9/8

14. Old school house and a few derelict structures in the foreground. There were also some old structures behind me. I belive this area is called Lane.   9/9

15. Entrance to the KGHM Robinson Mine on Ruth Higway road near Ruth, NV. I was able to take some pictures as long as I stayed in the visitors parking area. We even were told a little of the operation there. Right now mining is 24/7. While they are mining copper they do find a small percentage of gold and moybdenum and what they make from that is applied to overhead costs.  


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16. Conveyor dumping pulverized rock containing copper ore.   9/9

17. Truck on the right will dump its load in the building to the left. It will then go to where it is pulverized and then dumped by conveyor onto a huge pile.   9/8

18. A copper ore truck is leaving while another is being loaded.   9/8  


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/18 09:51 by jmbreitigan.

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19. The pile of pulverized rock is fed underground to the building in the center where a chemical process is used to extract copper ore.   9/9

This is it for Part 1. thanks for looking.

John



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/18 04:20 by jmbreitigan.

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Again, can someone tell me why the copper ore is not going out by rail to smelters?

Great photos. My favorite is number seven with 93 exiting the tunnel.
Bob

CPRR Wrote:
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> Again, can someone tell me why the copper ore is
> not going out by rail to smelters?

Mainly due to the cost of rehabbing 130+ miles of track from Ely to the UP interchange at Shafter.  In most places the track is barely visible in the sage brush.  The copper ore is trucked to Wendover, UT and loaded into rail cars there. https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4636937,4637524#msg-4637524

This explanation is the same I got from the KCC folks at Bingham Canyon Utah, that the extraneous metal ores help cover the operation and the copper was the profit.

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

Was 93 ever painted that way in regular service? I think it looks sharp with the red trim. Almost European where locos where red trim is common. 

Very interestiing!

In response to CPRR's question as to why the ore is not going out by rail, and to expand on some previous answers...

The answer as of now has a whole lot to do with the history of the NN and the copper mining in Ely.  As I said in a response to the Wendover thread, the raw ore dug out of the pits southwest of Ely run about 2-1/2 to 3 percent copper, meaning the other 97+% is waste rock and overburden.  Nevada Consolidated Copper Company was going to build their smelter immediately adjacent to what is now the East Ely yards, but local opposition caused them to move it a ways north to McGill.  Once operations got going there were essentially two railroad operations.  The Ore Line operated by the mining companies ran from the mines through Ely to the McGill smelter, that line ran 24 hours a day and moved in the neighborhood of 400-500 or more daily carloads of raw ore to the smelter.  That part of the railroad was well built with heavy rail to support that level of traffic.  The smelter converted the raw ore to maybe four or five cars of 99% pure blister copper each day, which the Nevada Northern hauled north to the WP and SP interchanges.  This low level of traffic allowed for the NN to be built its entire length with 60-pound rails, and there never was any pressing reason for the NN to ever upgrade its mainline.  Economics and the general failure of the McGill smelter to meet ever increasingly stringent environmental standards caused Kennecott to shut the entire Nevada Mines Division down in 1983, which led to the creation of the railroad museum two years later.  

Kennecott sold most of the NN mainline and the equipment not donated to the new railroad museum to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who planned to build a coal fired power plant up around Cherry Creek and needed the railroad to effect coal deliveries.  Those plans never really got off the ground.  Instead, in the early 1990s Mangma Copper acquired the mines and started laying plans to ship the ore to their smelter on the San Manuel Arizona Railroad in Arizona.  To that end they started building the concentrator up by the mines that reduces the raw ore to 40% copper/60% waste rock, which would then be shipped out by rail.  Magma initially brought in Bryan Whipple to run the railroad, Bryan set up the Northern Nevada Railroad Company, which started reopening the railroad; however, before work got too far Broken Hills Properties acquired Magma, and they decided to run the railroad themselves as BHP Nevada Rail.  BHP did some drainage work, replaced most of the ties on the line, and dumped a lot of ballast, but did not replace any of the 60-pound rails, which severely limited their operations.  Once in operation BHP ran two trains a week over the main line, these were long and very slow trains, operating well less than 10 miles per hour.  The heavy ore trains tore the tracks up, and derailments were very common even at the slow speeds.  By around 1997 or 1998 BHP was seriously examining building a truck scale at the concentrator and trucking the ore east to a reload on the UP somewhere in Utah south of Salt Lake City.  However, before those plans got too far BHP pulled the plug on the entire operation, and the last BHP Nevada Rail trains operated in June 1999.

Fast forward a couple more years, Nevada Senator Harry Reid wrote into some otherwise unrelated legislation a provision transferring the entire NN right-of-way to the NN museum, city of Ely, and White Pine County.  LADWP had long since by this point cancelled its coal fired power plant plans.  However, a couple other parties proposed power plants in the middle 2000s, which included rebuilding the NN main line, but the proponents withdrew both proposals by early 2009.  Meanwhile, the museum and others involved with the NN mainline subsequently leased it to S&S Shortline, which cleared brush and did some minor surfacing work on the part of the line between Shafter and Currie.  S&S's only business is car storage, about 2010 they shoved a bunch of covered hoppers quite a ways south, but otherwise they have never strayed beyond the Shafter yard and a short distance of the mainline just south of there. 

When the mines reopened again they wanted to use rail service direct from Ely, but only if it didn't cost them anything.  I did some very rough and off the cuff calculations a couple years ago using some published data for track upgrade costs, as per those I estimated totals to rebuild the NN main line with heavier rail, new ties, ballasting, tamping, and surfacing work would run somewhere between $25 million at the lowest end to north of $45 million for a complete ground up rebuild.  No one in eastern Nevada has that kind of money, including the mines, so until such time as the museum obtains enough grant monies of other sources of "free" money the ore will keep leaving Ely by truck.   

Attached are a couple pictures of the general condition of the NN mainline, the top picture is from one of the grade crossings on the valley floor north of Currie as it looked five years ago, it's safe to assume substantial brush growth has happened since.  This is the part of the line presently technically in service and used by S&S, though nothing had moved through here in about three years at the time I took this photo.  The bottom photo is typical of the line south of Currie, this one is at Cherry Creek as it looked in August 2017.  Nothing has moved through here since 1999.  

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV      

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One slight addendum to my previous response, the last BHP Nevada Rail train rolled north in June 1999.  There have been at least two other movements on the main line since, in very late 2000 the museum ran three of BHP's ex-SP SD-9s up to Shafter to ship them east to their new owner, then sometime around 2001, maybe early 2002 the museum received a pair of former military MRS-1s, and they ran their ex-BHP SD-9 #204 up to Shafter to bring them back to Ely.  Bottom line, when I said the second picture hadn't seen any movements since 1999, I really meant about 2001. 

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

JDLX Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In response to CPRR's question as to why the ore
> is not going out by rail, and to expand on some
> previous answers...
>
> The answer as of now has a whole lot to do with
> the history of the NN and the copper mining in
> Ely.  As I said in a response to the Wendover
> thread, the raw ore dug out of the pits southwest
> of Ely run about 2-1/2 to 3 percent copper,
> meaning the other 97+% is waste rock and
> overburden.  Nevada Consolidated Copper Company
> was going to build their smelter immediately
> adjacent to what is now the East Ely yards, but
> local opposition caused them to move it a ways
> north to McGill.  Once operations got going there
> were essentially two railroad operations.  The
> Ore Line operated by the mining companies ran from
> the mines through Ely to the McGill smelter, that
> line ran 24 hours a day and moved in the
> neighborhood of 400-500 or more daily carloads of
> raw ore to the smelter.  That part of the
> railroad was well built with heavy rail to support
> that level of traffic.  The smelter converted the
> raw ore to maybe four or five cars of 99% pure
> blister copper each day, which the Nevada Northern
> hauled north to the WP and SP interchanges.  This
> low level of traffic allowed for the NN to be
> built its entire length with 60-pound rails, and
> there never was any pressing reason for the NN to
> ever upgrade its mainline.  Economics and the
> general failure of the McGill smelter to meet ever
> increasingly stringent environmental standards
> caused Kennecott to shut the entire Nevada Mines
> Division down in 1983, which led to the creation
> of the railroad museum two years later.  
>
> Kennecott sold most of the NN mainline and the
> equipment not donated to the new railroad museum
> to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power,
> who planned to build a coal fired power plant up
> around Cherry Creek and needed the railroad to
> effect coal deliveries.  Those plans never really
> got off the ground.  Instead, in the early 1990s
> Mangma Copper acquired the mines and started
> laying plans to ship the ore to their smelter on
> the San Manuel Arizona Railroad in Arizona.  To
> that end they started building the concentrator up
> by the mines that reduces the raw ore to 40%
> copper/60% waste rock, which would then be shipped
> out by rail.  Magma initially brought in Bryan
> Whipple to run the railroad, Bryan set up the
> Northern Nevada Railroad Company, which started
> reopening the railroad; however, before work got
> too far Broken Hills Properties acquired Magma,
> and they decided to run the railroad themselves as
> BHP Nevada Rail.  BHP did some drainage work,
> replaced most of the ties on the line, and dumped
> a lot of ballast, but did not replace any of the
> 60-pound rails, which severely limited their
> operations.  Once in operation BHP ran two trains
> a week over the main line, these were long and
> very slow trains, operating well less than 10
> miles per hour.  The heavy ore trains tore the
> tracks up, and derailments were very common even
> at the slow speeds.  By around 1997 or 1998 BHP
> was seriously examining building a truck scale at
> the concentrator and trucking the ore east to a
> reload on the UP somewhere in Utah south of Salt
> Lake City.  However, before those plans got too
> far BHP pulled the plug on the entire operation,
> and the last BHP Nevada Rail trains operated in
> June 1999.
>
> Fast forward a couple more years, Nevada Senator
> Harry Reid wrote into some otherwise unrelated
> legislation a provision transferring the entire NN
> right-of-way to the NN museum, city of Ely, and
> White Pine County.  LADWP had long since by this
> point cancelled its coal fired power plant
> plans.  However, a couple other parties proposed
> power plants in the middle 2000s, which included
> rebuilding the NN main line, but the proponents
> withdrew both proposals by early 2009. 
> Meanwhile, the museum and others involved with the
> NN mainline subsequently leased it to S&S
> Shortline, which cleared brush and did some minor
> surfacing work on the part of the line between
> Shafter and Currie.  S&S's only business is car
> storage, about 2010 they shoved a bunch of covered
> hoppers quite a ways south, but otherwise they
> have never strayed beyond the Shafter yard and a
> short distance of the mainline just south of
> there. 
>
> When the mines reopened again they wanted to use
> rail service direct from Ely, but only if it
> didn't cost them anything.  I did some very rough
> and off the cuff calculations a couple years ago
> using some published data for track upgrade costs,
> as per those I estimated totals to rebuild the NN
> main line with heavier rail, new ties, ballasting,
> tamping, and surfacing work would run somewhere
> between $25 million at the lowest end to north of
> $45 million for a complete ground up rebuild.  No
> one in eastern Nevada has that kind of money,
> including the mines, so until such time as the
> museum obtains enough grant monies of other
> sources of "free" money the ore will keep leaving
> Ely by truck.   
>
> Attached are a couple pictures of the general
> condition of the NN mainline, the top picture is
> from one of the grade crossings on the valley
> floor north of Currie as it looked five years ago,
> it's safe to assume substantial brush growth has
> happened since.  This is the part of the line
> presently technically in service and used by S&S,
> though nothing had moved through here in about
> three years at the time I took this photo.  The
> bottom photo is typical of the line south of
> Currie, this one is at Cherry Creek as it looked
> in August 2017.  Nothing has moved through here
> since 1999.  
>
> Jeff Moore
> Elko, NV      

Thank you Jeff for the additional information and pictures. I find this very interesting. When I post more I have a picture I will ask you to comment on.

John Breitigan
Washington, PA.

Is the velocipede in 11 one of Mason's?

Thanks John for the pictures and Jeff for the detailed info.  Loved our visit to Ely, hope to go back someday.  

Nathan