“All aboard” for a trip back in time on 102-yr-old steam-powered No. 93, a workhorse of the Nevada Northern Railway. She was supposed to leave at 1 pm for her regularly scheduled hour-and-a-half train ride, but today was special: TJ Lanie, the engineer who took No. 93 on her last ore run in 1979 passed away this week at age 91. He was an Ely native and he was being buried today. Ol’ 93 departed the station @ 1:30 so she could stop at the top of a hill in view of the Ely cemetery. When the engineer's graveside service ended, today’s young engineer leaned on the horn in fond farewell. Being a part of this felt kind of special to all us passengers and we waved our own farewells! The train continued on thru the sage-covered hills to the turn-around point at Keystone near Ruth, Nevada, home to one of the world's largest copper mines. Quite a nice train trip!
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Big ol' engine ...
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... chuggin' away!
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Train turn around point.
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A huge pile of tailings from the copper mine.
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Later we tried our luck hunting for garnets at Garnet Mountain -- we "rock hammered" for garnets. Though we didn't find any gems, we enjoyed getting dusty-dirty immensely. Haha, we sounded like the steam-powered train ourselves puffing up the 7,000' mountain! You can see the HUGE "piles" of tailings in the background.
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Bubba and I rode this train years ago, and we remember the tailing. Got a picture of a house right at the base of the massive pile of tailings - makes ya wonder....
ReplyDeleteYou know the Town of Ruth has been replaced by New Ruth - moved the buildings and covered the old area with MORE tailings. If a person stood at the base of one of these huge mounds and a photo was taken, the person would look like an ant.
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