Still Going Strong After All These Years

The Nevada Northern Railway was built over a century ago to service what would become one of the largest copper mines in North America. Today, several of the original coal-fired standard-gauge steam locomotives that were ordered and delivered new to the railroad over 110 years ago are still in operation! The Nevada Northern Railway is the best-preserved example of a standard-gauge short-line left in North America.

The locomotive pictured on the front of this post card is a “Ten-wheeler” owned and operated by above mentioned The Nevada Northern Railway Museum. You can check out the Nevada Northern Railway by going to their website. This is their address: https://nnry.com ........They have a fan club and the following information was taken from their website: https://locomotive.fandom.com/wiki/Nevada_Northern_No._40 The Nevada Northern No. 40 is a 4-6-0 ten-wheeler type, steam locomotive which was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in July 1910 for the Nevada Northern Railroad Company. It originally served as the main passenger locomotive during the years when the Nevada Northern was a US Class 2 railroad. It served as the lead locomotive for the railroad's crack passenger train, the "Steptoe Valley Flyer". Before the Nevada Northern retired the locomotive in 1941, the locomotive was given a complete overhaul in secret by the shop crews in the Ely roundhouse. The locomotive was then put onto standby service. Afterwards, it was used in 1956 for the railroad's 50th Anniversary excursion and for pulling a charter train for the Central Coast Railway Club in 1958 before being tucked back into retirement in the very back of the Ely roundhouse, preserved along with several passenger cars . This was the last time the locomotive operated in revenue service. When the Nevada Northern shut down in the 1980's, the City of Ely was given the historic locomotive and train, along with the entire East Ely Yard, which was unaltered since being built in 1906, and any of the equipment and all of it which was inside the donated property. It is now currently used as a mixed traffic unit with the other Nevada Northern steam and diesel locomotives. But, its most famous role is the main locomotive for the "Ghost Train of Old Ely" excursion train.

The post card was published by Audio-Visual Designs in Earlton, New York after 1983. I know this year because the American zip code has the combination of 5 digits, a dash, then 4 more digits. This system was introduced in 1983 in the United States. I can get even closer to the publishing date, because the words on the back of the post card describing the scene on the front tell us that this was a run that was made on October 31, 1992. So, while the picture looks old because of the 110 plus year-old locomotive and the collection of cars behind it, it is really probably less that 30 years old.