Mark Bassett

Labor Day weekend in Ely, Nevada is dedicated to Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, a celebration of getting there from here. The activities start on Saturday, September 4th at 9:30 a.m. when the Ghost Train of Old Ely, powered by steam locomotive 93, heads up the track. This is an eighteen mile round trip to Ruth […]

Well it has already happened, we have already received the first requests for the 2005 schedule. I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. Here we are in the mist of our busiest season ever and people want to know when the trains will run next year. So lets put a kettle on the

It is amazing to me at least how history repeats itself. We all get comfortable in believing that something is new. It was never been done before, we’re the first. Then after little research you usually find out, what you thought was new, had already been done before. I mention this because the museum is,

There is an old expression, “You can’t see the forest because all of those trees are in the way.” To a certain extent, we all suffer from this affliction. We get so involved with our day-to-day activities we overlook the joy of what we are really doing. Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind us

I was standing in front of the East Ely Depot on Sunday morning and it had already been a hectic morning. I had just come off a caboose hop with a film location crew. It was 10:55 a.m. and locomotive 109 had just arrived back to East Ely with the caboose. The morning started with

One of the presenters at the Long Steel Rails Festival is John West. John is a supporter of the Nevada Northern Railway and has been coming to Ely for years to photograph the railroad. His presentation is titled, “A Life Wasted Chasing Trains.” In his own words I’ll let him explain the title and his

Recently, during a tour of the property, Sean Pitts of the East Ely Railroad Depot Museum used the phrase “reachable past” in his talk. Sean’s point of his narrative was that the past at the railroad museum is still reachable. He went on to elaborate that the people who maintained and operated the railroad are

For the past year or so the Nevada Northern Railway Museum has been marketing itself with the slogan “Still Steaming.” After all, we have an enormous amount of pride in the fact the steam locomotive 93 is still steaming and we are working hard to get steam locomotive 40 back in service. Yet it wasn’t

May 1st is the day when the 2004 season is officially off and running. As I write this, the weather is very unstable, first rain, then snow, and then sunshine. Then for variety we have snow, sun and then the rain, typical high desert weather in the springtime. It’s just the type of weather needed

This weekend, the museum will be conducting its annual safety training on the railroad as we gear up for our operating season. One of the mantras that we repeat constantly is that you should expect a train, “On Any Track, At Any Time, In Either Direction.” And if you are a parent or a grandparent