Virginia & Truckee Railroad

The Virginia & Truckee (V&T) was once the richest and most famous short line railroad in America. Created in 1869 to provide transportation for the Comstock Lode, the V&T transported gold and silver ore to the quartz reduction mills. On the return trip, it brought back cordwood for fuel, timbers for mining, lumber for building communities, and all the goods needed by the area's nearly 40,000 inhabitants. The V&T also supported passenger transportation between Virginia City, Gold Hill, Carson City, and Reno. At its peak, this "bonanza railroad" ran 50 trains per day and paid stockholders more than $130,000 in monthly dividends. Over the next 80 years, operations dwindled to a trickle, and the last train ran in May 1950. Today, the V&T is immortalized in motion pictures, its locomotives and cars are exhibited in museums, and 14 miles of the V&T have been returned to operation.

Author Stephen E. Drew is the leading historian of the V&T. He served for 35 years as chief curator of the California State Railroad Museum. He is the author of Nevada's Virginia & Truckee Railroad and Lake Tahoe's Railroads in Arcadia Publishing's Images of Rail series. The images included in this book were gathered over the course of 50 years from photographers as well as V&T employees and their families.