“We’re passing the torch from No. 40, which will be out of service for about two years, to Consolidation No. 81, whose boiler was just fired up for the first time since the 1960s; we hope to have it running by next summer,” Nevada Northern Railway Museum President Mark Bassett tells Trains News Wire.
A mandated Federal Railway Administration inspection is sidelining the 4-6-0, dubbed “The Queen,” that the bustling copper mining railroad bought from Baldwin in 1910 to pull passenger trains from Ely to connections with the Western Pacific at Shafter, Nev., and the Southern Pacific at Cobre, Nev. Passenger service ended in 1941 and the mines changed hands from Kennecott Copper to other operators before eventually closing down.
Today, tracks are abandoned from Cobre to Shafter and have not been used south of Shafter to about 10 miles north of Ely since 2001, except for some freight car storage near the junction at Shafter with what is now the Union Pacific. But Kennecott donated the shops and station buildings to the non-profit foundation, paving the way for a very active tourist operation in authentic surroundings with the same heritage locomotives that ran on the railroad.