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The Nevada Northern Railway is a Railroad in the U.S. State of Nevada , built primarily to provide rail access to a major Copper producing area in White Pine County, Nevada . The railway, constructed in 1905-06, extended northward approximately 140 miles from Ely to a connection with the Southern Pacific Railroad at Cobre . HISTORY The Nevada Northern owes its beginnings to the discovery and development of large porphyry copper deposits near Ely in the first years of the twentieth century. Two of the region's largest mines were purchased in 1902 by Mark Requa, president of the Eureka And Palisade Railroad in central Nevada. Requa then organized the White Pine Copper Company to develop his new properties, and it soon became evident that rail access to the isolated region would be essential to fully exploit the potential of the mines. Subsequent surveys indicated that the most practical route for such a railroad was northward from Ely, connecting with the Southern Pacific somewhere in the vicinity of Wells . The Ely-area copper properties were further merged in 1904, forming the Nevada Consolidated Copper Company, and the Nevada Northern Railway was incorporated on June 1, 1905 to build a line connecting the Nevada Consolidated mines and smelter to the national rail network. The task of building the new railroad was contracted to the Utah Construction Company , which began work on September 11, 1905. Construction began at Cobre, where the Nevada Northern connected with the Southern Pacific, and proceeded southward. The line was finished a year later, its completion marked by a two-day celebration in Ely. The railroad's symbolic final spike -- made of local copper -- was driven by Requa in Ely on September 29, 1906. Additional Ely-area trackage was constructed in 1908 to serve the mines and Nevada Consolidated's new copper Smelter and concentrator at McGill . As a subsidiary of Nevada Consolidated, the primary purpose of the Nevada Northern throughout its history was the haulage of copper ores and products. Other freight traffic was also carried, however, and the railroad operated a daily passenger train between East Ely and Cobre until 1941. Local trains were also operated between Ely and McGill for the benefit of mine employees and others. A series of corporate financial transactions in the 1920s and 1930s brought Nevada Consolidated under the control of the Kennecott Copper Corporation , and Nevada Consolidated was formally merged into Kennecott in 1942. The Nevada Northern thus became a Kennecott subsidiary. NEVADA NORTHERN RAILWAY TODAY In 1983 Kennecott completed the closure of its Ely-area mining operations and suspended operation of the Nevada Northern. The railroad's yard and shop facilities in East Ely were donated a non-profit foundation, the Nevada Northern Railway Museum , who operate it today as a Heritage Railway . Regular train service is offered between Ely, Ruth, and McGill using period equipment pulled by steam and diesel locomotives. In April 2006, Nevada's National Historic Landmarks Committee granted unanimous support to nominating the Nevada Northern's East Ely shops complex as a National Historic Landmark . The nomination was approved by the National Park Service on September 27 , 2006 . {Link without Title} The remainder of the Nevada Northern has largely been moribund since 1983, although the trackage from Ely as far north as Shafter was revived as BHP Nevada Railroad from 1996 to 1999. Current plans for the construction of coal-fired generating plants in the Ely vicinity are raising the possibility that the railroad may see yet another revival, this time carrying inbound loads of coal to White Pine County. REFERENCES
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