The engine hisses and sets loose a column of grey smoke laced with ash and embers. Bright white steam rises into the air.  The whistle sounds and we start out of the station.  Engine 40, a wonderfully restored 1907 steam engine of the Nevada Northern Railway leaves Ely, NV for a casual ride into the country.  We pass the public stables where town folks board their horses, lots of them.  From a rise along the edge of town the route gives us view of historic buildings; schools, town hall, miners cabins, taverns and gambling halls.  Beyond town we pass remnants of 100+ years of mining and the railroad that supported it.  Stone houses built into the mountainside at the site of small claims.  Tipples used to load ore onto the trains.  Abandoned deep mine ore cars.  Open pit mine scrap piles hundreds of feet high.  The train was an integral part of the lives and livelihoods of this little town and a ride on it gives one a feel for what those lives may have been like.

We start back toward the station. Wait, who is that?  A band of masked men, the Ghost Riders, come along side the train.  Brandishing guns, they force the engine to a stop and board the train.  They walk among us as if in search for someone.  A woman is singled out, cuffed and removed from the train.  The riders demand a ransom for her return.  Thankfully her family was able to meet the demands.  Once they were paid we were free to go.  The last thing we witness is a gunfight among the riders in dispute over who among them would get the ransom money.

Engine 40 returns us to the station with no further incident.

The Nevada Northern Railroad in Ely Nevada is a National Historic Landmark.  The rail yard and rail line along with much of the rolling stock of the railroad is being carefully restored and preserved.   We rode as passengers on a 90 minute narrated ride through the town, countryside and through history.  We could have been engineer for a day and actually driven a steam engine, shadowed the Conductor/brakeman/switchman for the trip, or spent the night in a caboose turned cabin or a railworker’s bunkhouse.  It is all very well done and a great time.

We took the walking tour of the engine repair shop and got a look at a lot of huge old belt driven equipment and another of the engines that is in for routine maintenance. Pretty amazing.  They have a huge steam crane that they actually use and an enormous steam driven rotary snow blower that they hope to one day get back into operation.  It is quite the engineering marvel just sitting here.

Oh, meet Dirtbag, the friendliest of the repair shop cats!

Our guide for the walking portion is really into his trains and took us for a look at the rest of their rolling stock that is awaiting or midway through restoration. The building is chocked fun of cabooses, passenger cars, more engines with their tenders, and even a rolling post office.

You will probably never find yourself here by accident. It is in the middle of nowhere.  But it’s worth it to make this trip on US 93.