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I fear I must get on my high horse again and crow about just how unique and precious our museum is. It is definitely a national treasure. I mentioned a few weeks ago how I found the original 1908 plans for the ash pit. Now I found a copy of Mark Requa’s 1906 speech that […]

I was speaking with a visitor to the museum the other day and he asked a simple question: what projects are we working on? Then I started to rattle off all of the projects that we have going on and what we have accomplished in the past year. The three critical projects are the Engine

Thanks to Mark Twain, an adopted son of Nevada, the Nevada Northern is using his guidance in the preservation of this historic property. Tom Sawyer has nothing on us; we out Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer, and we do it week after week as the following story attests to. But before we get to Doug’s story,

For the past couple of weeks, I had a notice at the bottom of this column asking whether anyone knew what the old ash pit looked like. Seemed like a simple question, but its answer actually has major ramifications. Let me start at the beginning. Steam engines burn coal. This coal turns into ash and

An interesting conversation took place at the museum this past week and I thought I would share it with you. The conversation was with a visitor who was disappointed that he could not rent a locomotive. The original purpose of Kennecott’s gift of the railroad to the community was for the railroad to become an

As I mentioned in my last article, one of my favorite words is dichotomy. Dichotomy means dividing something into two contradictory opposite groups. A favorite example is an old railroad term deferred maintenance; others are military intelligence and permanent loan. So what does this all have to do with the railroad museum? Two incidents happened at the museum recently

It’s hard to believe but summer is almost over, the Labor Day weekend is just about upon us. For the railroad, it means another big push and a chance to have some fun. For Labor Day weekend we celebrate Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The activities start on Saturday, August 30th at 9:00 am with a

I have read Ms. Baker-Anderson’s letter with interest. She does raise valid points if we were going to do a commercial rail operation in the normal sense of the word. The short version is we will not be a normal commercial operation. The Great Basin Railroad is not designed to be your typical commercial operation. Let me start

In August 2002, the management board of the Nevada Northern Railway Museum made the decision to operate trains six days a week during the summer months of 2003. This is part of a long-term strategy that is the realization of a promise made nineteen years ago. When Kennecott gave the railroad to the community, the

One of my favorite words is dichotomy. Dichotomy means dividing something into two contradictory opposite groups. A favorite example is an old railroad term, deferred maintenance another is military intelligence. So what does this all have to do with the railroad museum? Two incidents happened at the museum recently that just hammered home the term