http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=143282 - Happened to be wondering around railpictures.net and found this shot of Nevada Northern 81, what's the story behind this engine and what does the future hold for it?

I never even knew it existed.

-Justin Franz

Locomotive 81 was purchased new by the Nevada Northern Railway in 1917 to serve as the mainline freight locomotive from East Ely to Cobre, the interchange with the SP. She received a stoker in 1939.

Locomotive 93 exists today because she was the back up locomotive for 81. Although, I’m sure when a senior fireman came on duty and saw that 81 was being replaced with 93 that day, he all of a sudden got sick. He was not looking forward to hand firing 280 miles.

When the diesels came, locomotives 81 and 93 were kept as back up power for those new fangled inventions. In 1960 both locomotives were donated to the White Pine Public Museum for outdoor display. In 1990, the railroad museum traded the Cherry Creek to the museum for the two steam locomotives. Moved into the enginehouse 81 has sat there while locomotive 93 was returned to service.

Our plan is to do a ground up restoration on locomotive 81. There is a picture of 81 in our archives showing it heading out of town with about 40 freight cars. The three cars behind the locomotive are from the Milwaukee Road, the Southern and the New York Central. It is ironic that 81 has survived and those three railroads have not.

As a side note there is one steam locomitve left in the world that came from here, it was a 0-4-0 tank.

If someone will explain how to post an image, I will post that picture.

Hi Mark, basically each image needs its own web address (or URL) -- and the address must end in .jpg or .jpeg. Once you have the address, write your message the way you usually do in the text box. To add a photo, click the "Img" box above and then paste the address right next to that [img]. Then hit the preview button. If the image appears in preview, click "submit."

If you're finding this too complicated feel free to email the image to me, and I will host and post it for you.
(stephenhussar at restorationstories.com)

I read that this engine was suppose to be operational by 2017, but haven't seen any progress updates. Is she in fact being worked on?

http://www.elynews.com/2014/10/31/locomotive-engine-begin-two-year-restoration/

Another way to add a photo or other attachment is to use the "Upload attachment" feature when posting a reply. This will upload the image to the Interchange server and place it in your message. There is a file size limitation -- so depending on your original image byte size, you may have use a photo editing program to reduce the file size before it allows you to upload it. Again, use the preview button to see how it will look in the final post.

I thought this quote was interesting in the article
"Steam locomotives are required by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to undergo a fifteen-year maintenance cycle. Locomotive 93 will need to go under this federally mandated maintenance cycle staring in October 2016. As part of this maintenance cycle, the tubes in Locomotive 93’s boiler will need to be removed and the boiler shell inspected. In addition to the boiler work, the locomotive and her tender will be examined closely. Considering that the locomotive will be 107 years old in 2016, I can almost guarantee that we will find other issues that will need to be repaired during the fifteen-year maintenance cycle. This will put Locomotive 93 out of service for the 2017 operating season. If Locomotive 81 is not in service for the 2017 season that will leave Locomotive 40, a 107 year-old locomotive, to handle all of the trips that year.

Depending on Locomotive 40 to handle the 2017 season by herself is a recipe for a financial disaster for the Museum. We already know that Locomotive 40’s running gear has issues that date back to the 1930s. And, at any time, these issues could sideline Locomotive 40 for months if not years. That would leave us with no steam for the 2017 season and that would be disastrous."

Well, this begs the question about the 40's running gear. What is so wrong with the 40 that it may "take years" to fix? Steam loco machinery is pretty simple and well understood, so there should not be many issues that a good mechanic, machinist and blacksmith can't handle. If the 40 was likely to break, it surely would have broken in regular service by now.

Based on the articles on the NN's website, 40 is in need of hundreds of thousands of dollars of running gear work, and has been considered a standby locomotive since it came back in service after a scare with possible cracked axles.

John R. of Wasatch did an inspection on it and found it needed a total running gear overhaul, but that the axles were sound.

Not slinging mud, but IRM's UP 428 has been having running gear repairs worked on for many years, just because it is simple and understood does not mean it can take a long time to raise the money and find the talent to repair years of wear and tear.

Yeah, but it doesn't HAVE to. If more attention was paid to working on development and less on actual hands-on banging on rusty iron, there would be more funding available to hire the talent that knows how to do the banging on rusty iron properly the first time.

dave

Steam is simple but not cheap.
Now you know why diesels won.
A shovel and a wheelbarrow are simple, but a darn expensive way to dig a canal.

We can find numerous threads on this site documenting how many places are effectively limited to one active engine at a time due to maintenance expense.

When I visited Ely for the annual Winter Photo Shoots in February, the 81 had been moved out of the engine house to the RIP Building. The folks at the museum indicated to us that the plan was to work on her there. Here is what she looked like before being moved:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=478762&nseq=22

The 81 is a big engine. Unlike the other two, which are both hand-bombers, this gal has a stoker. AFAIK, the 81 has not been run in more than half a century. Fortunately, she appears to have been stored indoors for most of that time, so her condition has been relatively stable. As I saw her, she is missing some running gear parts and a lot of external appliances. The cab is also pretty well stripped. The museum may have many of those parts stored separately. The locomotive also appears as if it will need an asbestos abatement. I don't think that anyone can really comment on how much effort that it will take to get her running until a full boiler survey is done.

The one thing I do know is that when she runs, I am planning on being there. If she does run before either of the other two engines need their 1,472s, I suspect that the annual photo shoots will be wait-listed. I'm calling dibs right now!!

/Kevin

For the record, NN #81 is Baldwin s/n 45351.

Earlier in this thread (September of 2006), Mark Bassett alluded to an 0-4-0T as being from the Nevada Northern and was going to post a photo. That apparently never happened. Anyone have an idea as to what he was referencing?

Les

Was looking for other photos of the 81, and came across this page, with a couple of shots from when this engine and the 93 were on display outside.

http://www.ihpworkshops.com/ely_1970.html

Fascinating to see some of the other equipment that was still around then.

And yes, I think the 81 is a good looker--but so are the 40 and the 93!

Hi Les,

I believe that you are referring to Steptoe Valley Mining & Smelting #3, which is an 0-4-0T that is currently stored as a project at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. This loco is also in the RIP building, right next to the 81. I believe that it was repatriated back to Nevada 4 or5 years ago. I do have a recent photo, but things are packed pretty tightly at that end of the RIP and my shot is cluttered up with other, unrelated equipment. Here is a link to Doug Bailey's Steam Locomotive Info site, and a shot by Jeff Terry that is much cleaner:

http://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=221

I believe that the museum does intend to do something with this engine at some point, but Mark would have to comment on where it stands on the list of priorities.

/Kevin

Back in the very early days of the NNRY Museum (1987 or so) they asked me to look at the 93 and 81 and give them some advice. Both engines are close to the same size. 81 has a stoker on it because it was used on the long road haul to Cobre, and burned 3 tanks of coal each way. 93 was a mine-run engine. Both were pretty much completely intact, jewelry-wise. 81 had quite a few miles on it while 93 looked like it had been shopped, and run very little before retirement. I recommended doing the 93 first because it would take the least amount of work to make run.

The 40 had been shopped in the spring of 1940 and the passenger train came off a month or so later. It ran some fan trips in the 50's and 60's, the annual report still in the cab was dated 1964. We ran the 40 based on the 1940 shopping. It had good stout, tight running gear. My only complaint was she was terribly lame. I later did some work on that, but never had the time to do it right.