Thursday was a busy day for the [Arizona State Railroad Museum in Williams, Arizona]. Moved a couple of rail cars in yesterday form the Copper Basin Ry down by Hayden [southeastern Arizona]. Took two weeks to get them here but the move by UP and BNSF was free so we can’t complain. The caboose is almost as old as me (105) [he's exaggerating his age a bit, I believe...] and was built by Kennecott Copper Company back in 1910. The copper concentrate car is only 53. It was originally a Southern Pacific car. This move was two months in the making with Marc Pearsall in charge.

The cars arrived at 0430 so couldn’t get any photos of the arrival with BNSF motive power. GCR was able to pick them up shortly after 1400 and put them safely away in the yard. The attached photos are from my iPhone.

With this move we managed to salvage two extremely historic pieces of rail equipment. The shutdown of Copper Basin in imminent along with the copper mines in the area by ASARCO due to the falling copper prices. Thanks to the folks at Copper Basin we have managed to preserve five pieces of rolling stock…these two, along with a 102 year-old Ray & Gila Valley ore car, a 92 year-old Kennecott Copper Co side dump car, and a 53 year-old Kennecott Copper Co Fairmont A-4 gang car. These last three came up over the highway. Marc also arranged for a copper concentrate car to be delivered to the Arizona Railway Museum in Chandler [Arizona, suburban Phoenix].

Merry Christmas to All!

Al Richmond
Chairman & CEO
Arizona State Railroad Museum
204 W. Railroad Avenue
Williams, AZ 86046
928 606-2781
http://www.azstaterrmuseum.org