Virginia & Truckee Part 1: Silver Shortline Of The West | Circa 1938 - 1953

May 31, 2025 marks 75 years to the day of the abandonment of the Virginia & Truckee Railway.

This shortline railroad in Western Nevada has become world famous for its connection to Nevada's Bonanza booms of the 1870s, and for the survival of so many of its locomotives and rolling stock, which made the railroad a living time capsule.

The railroad's original purpose was to haul the endless string of valuable gold and silver ore from the mines in and around Virginia City, to Carson City and Reno. The mining in Virginia City was essentially over by the 1930s, and the program's first films are of some of the last trips over the line in 1938.

The railroad had completed their line to Minden in 1906, and following the abandonment of the line to Virginia City, agricultural products, petroleum products, zinc, iron, and gypsum.

A tour of the railroad from Reno to Minden is then given using all color movie film from 1941 - 1950. You will see the V&T as it divests itself of its 19th century locomotives and rolling stock, struggling to survive. The last major fantrips over the railroad are viewed, and the largest of these, involving a doubleheader with V&T 26 and 27, is viewed in its entirety.

The demise of engine 26 is featured, and you will see in photos her final moments before going out in a blaze of glory a month before the end of the railroad. You will then see V&T 27 bringing the curtain down for the railroad, and she pulls into Reno for the last time on May 31, 1950.

The story normally would end here, but the V&T refused to fade away. The program closes with the return of a V&T engine to Reno in 1953. The V&T's legacy would only continue to grow in the following decades, but that's a story for another video......

Enjoy your trip to the Comstock, and to Carson City, and Minden! This is your ticket into the amazing story of one of railroading's most treasured, and fascinating shortline operations!

TRAIN TO TOMBSTONE and ROAR OF THE IRON HORSE are now public domain due to invalid/expired copyright

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