Preservation is Hard 2

On December 1, 2025, I announced our $250,000 Member Challenge Match. One of our members committed to matching every dollar we raised, up to a quarter million dollars. That’s not just generous — it’s extraordinary. And yes, I announced it everywhere I could, including Facebook.

Almost immediately, one of the first responses landed with a thud:

“Well it just seems to me every couple of years everything just falls apart on the Nevada Northern. Shouldn’t there be a better maintenance plan executed? Rainy day fund established? Why is there a continuous ‘begathon’ in progress?”

It’s a fair question. Here’s the reality.

Lip Service Doesn’t Pay for Preservation

As a society, we say we care about preserving our past… but we don’t actually fund it. Not at the level preservation requires. That’s why the “begathon” never really ends. Because history doesn’t maintain itself.

Now contrast that with sports.

In Las Vegas, the State of Nevada and Clark County approved up to $380 million in public funds for a new Athletics ballpark. And when the Raiders stadium was built, the Nevada Legislature was called into a special session to pass SB1, capping the total public investment at $750 million.

That’s over a billion dollars of taxpayer money going into professional sports stadiums. And don’t get me started on salaries, ticket prices, concession costs, parking fees, and everything else they squeeze out of families just to watch someone throw a ball.

Meanwhile…

We’re Maintaining a Century-Old Railroad at the End of the Earth

At the Nevada Northern Railway National Historic Landmark, we’re maintaining — and operating — a century-old railroad in the most remote city in the contiguous United States, in a community of 3,924 people.

Our 56-acre complex contains 60 buildings and structures, some dating to 1906, and most built in 1907 — right in the middle of the Bank Panic of 1907 (which is a polite way of saying “depression”).

And we don’t just maintain buildings.

We maintain our own electrical system, our own water system, and our own sewer system.

Then there’s the railroad itself. In conjunction with the City of Ely, we own 146.5 miles of track, with about 22 miles currently in service. We maintain three major crossings on U.S. 93, a highway carrying roughly 10,000 vehicles per day, plus 16 additional crossings we’re responsible for maintaining.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s already a lot to keep from “falling apart.”

Steam Locomotives Were Never Meant to Be 116 Years Old

Now let’s talk steam locomotives.

• Locomotive 93 is 117 years old; she was delivered when Teddy Roosevelt was president!
• Locomotive 40 is 115 years old.
• Locomotive 81 is the baby of the fleet at a mere 109 years old.

These were never built to be museum artifacts. They were industrial tools, run hard, maintained to the standards of the day, and expected to wear out. In fact, when a locomotive wore out, it was sent to McGill to be turned into mill balls to process the copper ore.

When Locomotive 40 was brought back to service in 1956 for the 50th Anniversary celebrations, only enough work was done to make her compliant — which makes perfect sense from a corporate economic standpoint. Nobody was thinking, “Let’s rebuild this thing for the next hundred years.”

So yes: when you operate century-old machines that were used hard in their working lives, something always breaks.

Of course, the other option is to not run them at all.

But we’ve learned the hard way: visitors will not commit to a 500-mile round trip without an operating steam locomotive. People don’t come to Ely to look at a cold engine behind a fence. They come to experience a living, breathing railroad.

We Have a Maintenance Plan… But the Math is Brutal

We do have a maintenance plan. We always have.

But steam locomotives, by their very definition, are high-maintenance machines. We estimate that for every hour a steam locomotive is hot, we rack up about three hours of maintenance. We fire up on Friday and keep a locomotive hot through Monday. That’s four days of operation. That means we’ve just created roughly twelve days of maintenance behind it. Even in the railroad’s heyday, there were always two or three steam locomotives out of service at any given time. That’s just the nature of the beast.

And don’t get me started on our ALCO diesels.

The American Locomotive Company’s 244 diesel engine did so much damage to ALCO’s reputation it helped kill the company. And as luck would have it, all THREE of our ALCOs have 244s in them.

We Can’t Just Go to AutoZone

When we need parts — steam or diesel — it isn’t as simple as walking into AutoZone.

If we can find the parts, they’re expensive. If we can’t find them, they have to be custom-made. And custom manufacturing for century-old railroad equipment is, as you can imagine, ridiculously expensive.

The “Rainy Day Fund” Problem

Now, about that rainy-day fund. I agree — it’s a great idea. The problem is… it’s constantly downpouring here.

We’re managing a century-old complex with a hundred-year backlog of ailments. Locomotives break, track needs work, crossings wear out, buildings age, utility systems need upgrading, passenger cars need repair, and there’s always a new crisis waiting in the wings.

And yes — we’re also battling the proposed pumped storage generating project that threatens to tear out the inside of a mountain and dump 1,000,000 cubic yards of rubble between our hiline and mainline tracks. Not to mention if this project goes forward, it will destroy the pristine views we currently enjoy along our HiLine branch. And its seven-year construction timeline will have an extraordinary negative impact on our ridership and visitation too. To protect the museum from this project, we had to hire an attorney. That isn’t cheap either.

We’re Not Just Asking — We’re Working

And it’s not like we’ve been sitting around wringing our hands while running “begathons.” We’ve been actively writing grants. Two recent grants will help us repair:

• The Air Brake Building — $176,105
• The Kennecott Corporate Headquarters building in McGill — $80,000

And thanks to our partnership with White Pine County, we have a Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act (SNPLMA) grant for $10,168,421 to open the railroad track into McGill. And that points out the scope of what we’re dealing with: Ely to McGill is 12 miles. And it takes a ten-million-dollar grant to open those 12 miles properly. That’s the scale we’re working at!

So Yes — It Can Look Like“Every couple of years something falls apart.”

It can feel that way from the outside. But it’s not because of poor planning. It’s because we’re preserving — and operating — a living, working, century-old railroad in a remote community. We’re not putting history behind glass.

We’re keeping it alive. And that takes ongoing support.

And Boy Howdy, Did You Show Up

Now for the good news. Our $250,000 Member Match Challenge set records. December 29, 30, and 31 set fundraising records here. This led to an incredible $472,874 raised — which means we can invest $722,847 in our steam locomotives! That is an astonishing achievement, and it happened because thousands of people believed in what we do here.

Now… (and I hate to be a killjoy) the reality is that considerably more will be needed to get all three steam locomotives back into full operation. And beyond steam, we have other pressing needs:

• The U.S. 93 crossing near the Prospector Hotel needs to be rebuilt.
• We have the opportunity to restore our little 4-wheel bobber caboose #15.
• Our passenger coaches all need work.
• We have tie issues on the HiLine.
• We have a water problem on the Keystone branch.
• And the buildings always need TLC and paint.

The list goes on and on.

Preservation is HARD, but it’s Worth Doing!

Thanks to our hardworking staff, dedicated volunteers, and thousands of members, we fight the good fight here every single day. Progress is being made all around the railroad. Thanks to the dedication of our staff, volunteers, and members, Locomotive 81 is back in service, amazing work has been done in the archives, Locomotive 204 was repainted to Locomotive 250, and our passenger coaches are receiving much-needed TLC!

This just didn’t happen; it’s the ongoing work that happens here day in and day out. With your continued support, we’ll keep doing it. Because history deserves more than lip service. It deserves commitment.

Thank you for standing with us.