August 8, 2011, Ely, NV


Monday morning, August 8th, we headed east across Nevada on Highway 50.  The 287-mile stretch of this highway from Fernley to Ely was dubbed “the loneliest road in America” by Life magazine in July 1986.   It really is a lonely and desolate stretch of road and follows the Pony Express route across Nevada. Nevada is the most mountainous state in the Nation with 314 individual ranges and hills and we drove over a lot of them today.  We drove from Carson City to Ely in about 6 hours – the longest we have driven in one day all summer.  We are staying at the KOA in Ely, a very nice RV park but also the most expensive we have stayed at in a long time.



We visited the Nevada Northern Railroad Museum in Ely.  This is a very nice restored rail yard with 66 original buildings and structures, 4 steam engines and about 6 diesel engines, and over 70 pieces of rolling stock.







One of the volunteers gave us a nice tour of the engine house and shop. We enjoyed walking around looking at all the restored equipment and buildings.  This is the water tower and coal tipple.  


Rex was in railroad heaven and is getting anxious to get to Chama – three more weeks and he will get his train fix for the whole month of September.






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