The first railyard to be recognized as a national historic site. One has to wonder what prompted this remark; “The Nevada Northern Railway complex is the last remaining complete standard gauge railroad in the United States,” said Ron James, Nevada’s state Historic Preservation Officer. I wonder what frightening, alternate universe that comment represents… Makes one think back to all the once major, now redeveloped rail yards, particularly on the East Coast that have gone by the wayside, with nary a nod to their historic legacy. Score one for our history. http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06300/733268-37.stm
They must have cut “from the steam era” from his quote, or he forgot to add that in.
I hope so. Here today, gone tomorrow. It was one of those comments that if quoted as spoken serves as an epitaph for the lost world of lantern waving switchman, nattily adorned conductors pulling up the stepbox giving his pocket watch a nervous glance, and the grit of hostlers…I keep thinking of Potomac Yard, or anyplace for that matter that has been so completely erased from existance, you’d never know good people spent a fair portion of their lives played out on that stage. Someone remarked there’s a strip mall where it used to be…
What he should have said, or might have said, is on the website-
http://nevadanorthernrailway.net/Press/PressRelease%20NHL.htm
On September 27, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced the designation of the Nevada Northern Railway East Ely yard complex, locomotives and rolling stock in Ely, Nevada as a National Historic Landmark, acknowledging it as “the best-preserved, least altered, and most complete main yard complex remaining from the steam railroad era.”
National Historic Landmark status is the highest recognition accorded by our nation to historic properties possessing “exceptional value or quality in illustrating and interpreting the heritage of the United States.” Since the program began in 1935, fewer than 2,500 properties nationwide have achieved NHL designation. Moreover, only a handful of designations represent the nations’ railroads: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum and Mount Clare Station in Maryland; Colorado’s Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad; Pennsylvania’s East Broad Top Railroad; and the Union Pacific depot in Cheyenne, Wyoming, the last of the grand, nineteenth-century depots remaining on the transcontinental railroad.
Is’nt there a museum in Cheyenne connected or associated with the UP depot? I half remember that the UP either managed or sponsored it. I wonder what that has in it…