Received a four page fundraising letter from Nevada Northern the other day. IMHO, a first class effort !!

Does anyone from NN care to share any details on this ?

Dave

What Dave is talking about is the Phoenix Dare. This is an ambitious multi-year capital campaign that focuses on all aspects of the Nevada Northern Railway, National Historic Landmark. The first phase focuses on our steam and ALCO diesel locomotives.

Our first challenge is to turn the drivers on locomotive 93 so she is ready for the 2016 excursion season. (She will be operating for the 2016 winter photo freights.) Locomotive 93 goes down for tubes in October 2016. That would leave us with just locomotive 40 for the 2017 excursion season. 40 can’t handle the job.

So we are going to start the restoration on Locomotive 81. She is a 2-8-0 Baldwin that was purchased and delivered here in 1917. We recently received the last Nevada Northern Railway locomotive left on the planet, Steptoe Valley Mining and Smelting #3. She is a 0-4-0 and perhaps the ugliest locomotive around. Restoration has already started on her, so we plan to do locomotives 81 and 3 at the same time with the emphasis being on 81.

Short version, the Phoenix Dare is to raise $2,000,000 in 2 years, to restore two locomotives back to operation. Why a Phoenix? From mythology, a Phoenix is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. A Phoenix typically dies by fire and rises from the ashes. The symbolism of a Phoenix, fits a steam locomotive to a ‘T’.
The long term goal of the Dare is to address the long term preservation of the railroad and create the Heritage Industrial Arts Institute here at the railroad too.