COLLECTION NAME:
NNRy Background and History Information
Record
Title:
The Ely Route
Description:
When Mark Requa, general manager of the Eureka and Palisade Railroad, originally considered a rail route to transport the mineral wealth of the Robinson Mining District, two alternative plans were considered. The shorter journey would link his Eureka and Palisade narrow gauge line with the Robinson district. The longer route, eventually chosen, proceeded north through the Steptoe Valley to the crossing of the Western Pacific line at Shafter and further north to the junction at Cobre with the Southern Pacific.
The map clearly illustrates the geography of the alternate routes for the iron rails. The east-west route to Eureka is shorter by far, but entails crossing several mountain ranges. The prospect of keeping such a line open during the winter months with heavy snows at those elevations, and the fact that grades are the enemy of railroads led to the selection of the longer but relatively flat north-south railroad.
Had the route to Eureka been chosen, Ruth or Riepetown might very well have been the eastern terminus of a three-foot narrow gauge railway that never reached Ely.
Employee timetables further illustrate elevations involved in the chosen route. Notice that the mainline from Cobre to East Ely gains a paltry 674 feet in over 139 miles; an average grade of only 0.06%. In addition, there are no bridges, trestles or tunnels along the entire route.
The line from East Ely to the Robinson Mining District has a slightly different flavor. There were originally two tunnels between East Ely and Keystone Junction. The 206' tunnel #2 was "daylighted" (removed) in 1944 while the 310' curved tunnel remains to this day. The current "Tunnel #2 was built to replace the highway overpass just pass Tunnel #1. The grade here is 0.9%. From Keystone Junction to the former BHP copper mill at Riepetown, the rail line gains 350' in 3.1 miles - a substantial 2.1% grade.
Public timetables from 1931 show that the crew of passenger trains could enjoy home cooking for breakfast and dinner, while squeezing-in a round-trip from Ely to Cobre between meals. Departing East Ely at 8:49am they arrived at Cobre at 1:10pm. After a one-hour layover, they returned to East Ely at 6:35pm.
In contrast, the last ore trains ran by BHP from the Ely ore yard to the junction with the Union Pacific at Shafter were multiple-day excursions.
However, this comparison does suffer from the "apples to oranges" sundrome. The passenger trains of the 1930s had a speed restriction of 40 mph whereas the freights of the BHP Nevada of the late 1990s were limited to 10 mph. Even the ore trains of the 1930s were generally restricted to a top speed of 20 mph between the Robinson District and the smelter at McGill. Regardless, those last very low speed restrictions do reflect the light rail and poor track conditions that were evident over much of the originally mainline.
Today, the mainline has largely been abandoned though there are continued discussions about reopening the line.
The map clearly illustrates the geography of the alternate routes for the iron rails. The east-west route to Eureka is shorter by far, but entails crossing several mountain ranges. The prospect of keeping such a line open during the winter months with heavy snows at those elevations, and the fact that grades are the enemy of railroads led to the selection of the longer but relatively flat north-south railroad.
Had the route to Eureka been chosen, Ruth or Riepetown might very well have been the eastern terminus of a three-foot narrow gauge railway that never reached Ely.
Employee timetables further illustrate elevations involved in the chosen route. Notice that the mainline from Cobre to East Ely gains a paltry 674 feet in over 139 miles; an average grade of only 0.06%. In addition, there are no bridges, trestles or tunnels along the entire route.
The line from East Ely to the Robinson Mining District has a slightly different flavor. There were originally two tunnels between East Ely and Keystone Junction. The 206' tunnel #2 was "daylighted" (removed) in 1944 while the 310' curved tunnel remains to this day. The current "Tunnel #2 was built to replace the highway overpass just pass Tunnel #1. The grade here is 0.9%. From Keystone Junction to the former BHP copper mill at Riepetown, the rail line gains 350' in 3.1 miles - a substantial 2.1% grade.
Public timetables from 1931 show that the crew of passenger trains could enjoy home cooking for breakfast and dinner, while squeezing-in a round-trip from Ely to Cobre between meals. Departing East Ely at 8:49am they arrived at Cobre at 1:10pm. After a one-hour layover, they returned to East Ely at 6:35pm.
In contrast, the last ore trains ran by BHP from the Ely ore yard to the junction with the Union Pacific at Shafter were multiple-day excursions.
However, this comparison does suffer from the "apples to oranges" sundrome. The passenger trains of the 1930s had a speed restriction of 40 mph whereas the freights of the BHP Nevada of the late 1990s were limited to 10 mph. Even the ore trains of the 1930s were generally restricted to a top speed of 20 mph between the Robinson District and the smelter at McGill. Regardless, those last very low speed restrictions do reflect the light rail and poor track conditions that were evident over much of the originally mainline.
Today, the mainline has largely been abandoned though there are continued discussions about reopening the line.
The Ely Route
