Ely, NV

We are headed for Ely, where there is yet another RR museum, the theme of this trip so far. Our route, 50, is known as the loneliest road in the US, going nearly 300 miles and passing through only one or two tiny towns.

Many parched lifeless flat areas, where the kids have put their names out in black stones on the white salt: who they love, signs and symbols. We see this in other places too, as thought the flat white surface demands something be written there. And strangest of all, a huge cottonwood tree covered with shoes! Further investigation reveals similar trees around the country, (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/shoetrees.html). We really didn’t stop there for that, it was a good pull over for a potty break. Very strange fruit.

This is the Great Basin desert that stretches across central Nevada and Utah. It includes the Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt lake, and numerous other low places that now are just sagebrush flats surrounded by ribs of 11,000 foot mountain ranges running north and south. We are running east, so we go up and over each range, sometimes at quite a grade, down the other side, and then a long flat area between. As we leave the Reno area, there is more grass and we see a few cattle, but this is really out there. And beautiful.

The Continental Divide shows on the map as a single dotted line, from there the water goes east or west. The Great Basin is a huge area where the water, what there is of it, goes nowhere, either seeps into the ground or runs out onto the flats and evaporates on white salty flats. Alkali flats, salt pans. I imagine a wagon of emigrants crossing this, especially the Bonneville Salt Flats. They must have thought they had died and gone to hell. The Great Basin is a place where the continental divide line on the map swells out and leaves a whole big hole, and all the salt that should go into the ocean eventually, ends up staying.

As we near Ely, the mountains of tailings from the Robinson area copper mine show blond against the gray sage, juniper and pinion pine hills. The largest, the Liberty pit, is one of the biggest in the US, and is the reason that Ely and the Nevada Northern RR existed.

We pull onto a side street, discussing on the CB which way to head, and a nice guy broke in and said to come see him at the Stardust and he will help us. Since we needed to pee and get out of the trucks, we did. Looked just like any old bar, with a few more paintings of naked boob and fannies than normal, but when I started to look for the ladies room, the guy stopped me and said “this is a brothel, so we only have a men’s room”. To which I replied, if it is a brothel, there must be somewhere for ladies to pee. He laughed and showed me to the back, which was clean and tidy like any suburban house, alas, and no ladies in sight. Don didn’t even realize it was a brothel. So that is a first for both of us !

After some discussion, we headed up the Cave Lake State Park, to a 12 star campsite over looking the valley with the snow covered mountains in the distance. Amazing place, with elk warning signs all over the place, but no elk that we could see. There is a sort of slot in the rock where the creek from the small lake above passes down, and the slope is all south. I imagine the elk all holed up in here for the winter, safe in their fort.

The next day, down to the RR museum. The Nevada Northern was a short line that moved ore to the concentrator in McGill, 20-30 miles to the north, and then 100 miles on to connect with the Union Pacific in Shaffer to go to the smelters in AZ or TX. It also brought passengers back and forth. In 1965,they just shut down and locked the doors. They left cars and engines, including steam and diesel, they left the tools in the numerous and huge workshops. They left the desks and old typewriters and all the company books and records. It is a time capsule, weathered, but the volunteers are keeping it all going.

The main depot is a big stone building with a rounded triple arch front and back, Mission Revival style. Here the offices and records sit up stairs, frozen in time. The yard is huge, the coaling tower and water tower looming over it and beyond it a wide endless valley that the wind whistles down. Off to the left, their excursion train, two cars, an open flatbed car and a yellow caboose, sits by its lonesome. Some old wooden ore cars and a few odd freight cars sit in various places, but the general sense is one of desolation, and abandonment. A ghost railway. They call their excursions train the Ghost train, so they must feel it too.

The cavernous shop buildings have walls of small paned windows and skylights up above, so you can see the mountains and the emptiness outside. Inside are two steam engines (both under repairs for cracked axles) several vintage diesels, a really old steam powered rotary plow, and some other cars. There are other huge glass paned shops that are locked, these have several huge cranes, and some very old passenger cars, but we don’t get to see them.

It is the buildings and the yard that are the best of this museum. They are not polished up at all, the tour is right through the shop area with holes and dirt and things to fall over and into. There are hardly any interpretive displays, but the shop areas are clearly in use and they have taken the wheels and axles off one steam engine. It looks as though someone makes sure the tools are put away, too ! They are conserving both the physical treasures and the skills that RR work requires, and that may disappear in time. Our museum in Campo has a much bigger collection of rolling stock, but the structures here are wonderful.

The museum is worth a long drive, and the town of Ely has wonderful murals painted on every blank wall. The Great Basin National Park is up the road, and I would have liked to see the mines in Ruth. There are 6 stone round beehive shaped charcoal kilns, looking like something from Italy, the charcoal was used in the early refining process. Ely isn’t a boom town anymore, but the price of copper and now gold has kept it going, and it has a lot of energy and appeal. There is talk that the Nevada Northern line might be resurrected, now that using trucks is getting expensive. I think all RR buffs have that dream today, and for Ely the talk of possible gold found in the mines still gets everyone stirred up.

The valleys stretch on for miles into the distance, carved smooth by glaciers, with the peaks still stiff and snowy. Bierstadt and others who I thought had romanticized the west, were just painting what they saw. Even the quality of the light on these mountains looks a little forced if you see the canvas in Boston, but when you are right here, then you really know what they saw and captured. .