Nevada Northern Railway

Mark Requa's copper company laid this line in 1905 and 1906 — a hundred and fifty miles from the mines west of Ely north to the transcontinental rails at Cobre — to carry ore to the smelter at McGill. For decades it ran a "school train", hauling McGill's children to the high school in Ely until 1941. What sets the Nevada Northern apart is how completely it survived: the East Ely yards, shops, and depot stand intact as a working museum, one of the best-preserved short-line railroads in the country, with steam still firing on its own track.

What the plaque says

Mark Requa's Nevada Consolidated Copper Company built a 150-mile line from Cobre on the Southern Pacific to Ely in 1905-06 to haul ore from Copper Flat mines west of Ely. Ore was loaded into railroad gondolas at Copper Flat for the trip to the smelter at McGill, over a double-track trestle 1720' long. The trestle burned in 1922 and was replaced with an earth fill. Passenger service and the "school train" carrying McGill youth to Ely High School ended in 1941. Copper ore still moves over the railway between the Copper Flat pit and the McGill concentrator and is still shipped out to Cobre. Freight trains also occasionally still ply the track between Ely and Cobre on the Southern Pacific and Ely and Shafter on the Western Pacific.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ely — 0.6 mi
  The copper town and crossroads at the east end of the loneliest road — home of the Ghost Train and the gateway to Great Basin
• Ward Charcoal Ovens — 13 mi
  Six great stone beehives in the Egan Range — the best-preserved charcoal kilns in Nevada, and the intact relic of the fuel that fed every silver smelter

More markers nearby

• Ely, Forging The Link — 0.7 mi
• Jedediah Strong Smith — 3.5 mi
• Copper Country — 5.1 mi
• Ward Mining District — 13 mi