Death Valley Railroad

Transfer station from 2-foot (above) to 3-foot gauge (below)

Course of the Death Valley Railroad from Death Valley Junction
to the 6 borax mines at Ryan

Route length:

32.2 km

Gauge :

3 feet = 914 mm

Maximum slope :

35 ‰

Legend

		Tonopah & Tidewater RR to Gold Center
		Connection clay pit Ash Meadows
	0.0	Death Valley Junction
		Tonopah & Tidewater RR to Ludlow
	5.6	Horton
		Standard-gauge junction to Lila C.
		Trestle No. 1
		Trestle No. 2
		Trestle No. 3
	29.0	Colmanite
		Trestle No. 4th
	32.2	Ryan
		Biddy McCarthy Mine connecting railway

The Death Valley Railroad ( DVRR ) was a railroad company established for the transport of borax , which ran from January 26, 1914 to June 13, 1934. The railway line of the same name was a 32.2 km long narrow gauge railway with a gauge of 3 feet (914 mm) from Death Valley Junction to a borax mine near Ryan in California . A 6 km branch with a 2 foot (610 mm) gauge was later added. After mining was stopped in 1927, it was temporarily used for tourism until March 15, 1931. The Death Valley Railroad's locomotives are all still intact, and most of the track systems have been dismantled.

history

prehistory

When the borax deposits of the Lila C. Mine were almost exhausted around 1914, the Pacific Coast Borax Company searched for and found abundant borax deposits at Furnace Creek slightly northwest of the previous mine. The claims were named "Biddy McCarthy", "Lower Biddy McCarthy", "Grand View", "Lizzie V. Oakley", "Widow" and "Played Out". The future mining area was in an inaccessible area away from the existing traffic routes.

Foundation of the Death Valley Railroad

To develop the new deposits, it was planned to build a miners' settlement near the new mines and to connect them to the public rail network with a narrow-gauge railway. Originally, the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad (T&T), which had crossed the Amargosa Valley in a north-south direction since 1907 , also built this route. The plan failed when the supervisory authority refused the necessary capital increase. In order to enable the railway construction anyway, the Death Valley Railroad was founded as an independent stock corporation and registered on January 26, 1914.

Before the construction of the railway, agreements had to be made with T&T regarding the shared use of the Death Valley Junction station and a section of the route to the Lila C. Mine. Since DVRR and T&T were owned by the same owners, negotiations went smoothly.

Railway construction

The route work began in March 1914. 350 workers and 150 mules were used to build the line . Tracks, track-laying equipment and a construction locomotive came from the disused Borate and Daggett Railroad , which ran southwest of Death Valley . Construction work was completed at the end of November 1914, so operations could begin on December 1, 1914. The total cost of track construction and rolling stock was $ 359,726. At the same time as the DVRR, a connecting line from Ryan to the Biddy McCarthy Mine went into operation, which was also built in 914 mm gauge.

Consolidation and further plans

Ryan Mining Settlement, later renamed Devar

After the opening of the DVRR, the Lila C. Mine gradually ceased operations. The ore processing and packaging facility was relocated to Death Valley Junction Station. Ryan's buildings, as the settlement was called since 1907, were dismantled along with the post office and rebuilt in a new location. The old settlement was subsequently referred to as Old Ryan, the new as New Ryan. Then the branch of the T&T was dismantled and the third rail to Horton removed. In the mid-1920s, it was foreseeable that the supplies around New Ryan would also run out. Therefore, new borax deposits were prospected south of Ryan, which should be developed with an extension of the DVRR.

Tourist use, decommissioning and dismantling

After new deposits were found in Boron whose minerals were of better quality and easier to mine, Pacific Coast Borax decided in 1928 to stop mining in Death Valley, to forego the development of further deposits in this area and instead to tour the facilities use. Camp Ryan's residential buildings have been converted into the Death Valley View Hotel. The Ryan settlement then also changed its name based on the route in Devar (an acronym for De ath Va lley R ailroad). A railcar was procured in 1927 to transport tourists. The offer was up to the global economic crisis well received, then the guest numbers fell sharply, so the hotel had to be closed.

The DVRR was also deprived of its livelihood. Operations ceased on March 15, 1931 and the railway company was dissolved on June 13, 1934. The track system was dismantled after the closure by the end of 1931 and sold together with the equipment and vehicles to the United States Potash Company , which built the United States Potash Railroad near Loving in New Mexico . The new owners also took over the staff familiar with railway operations.

Route

Trestle Bridge No. 3 with the emergency car based on a Cadillac from 1912 intended for emergencies

The starting point of the train was the Death Valley Junction station in Amargosa Valley on the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad. For the first 5 kilometers between Death Valley Junction and Horton, the regular-gauge T&T line to the Lila C. Mine was also used and provided with a three-rail track . This section was operated by the DPRR but remained the property of T&T. Behind Horton, the route turned in a north-easterly direction and ran at the foot of the Funeral Mountains a little south of today's California State Route 190 with large curve radii in a constant gradient (maximum 35 ‰) up to about 927 meters above sea level. The rest of the route had less gradients, but ran in difficult terrain along the ridge that separated Amargosa Valley and Death Valley . In the following section, three of the four larger trestle bridges were made of wood. The route circled the ridge and reached Death Valley. The following section was laid out in a south-easterly direction along the mountainside, which made a series of terrain cuts necessary. After passing the Colmanite stop and crossing the fourth bridge, the route continued in a westerly direction and ended after 27 kilometers in the Ryan miners' settlement. The line continued as a siding to the Biddy McCarthy Mine in the south.

On a map published by the US Geological Survey in 1920, the stations are labeled Colemanite and Devair. In other publications names like New Ryan or Devar can be found, with Ryan also being used for the settlement at the Lila C. Mine .

"Baby Gauge" with 610 mm gauge

"Baby-Gauge" lorries at Ryan's, 1916

1915 a lower cost 2-foot narrow-gauge railway was built (610 mm) as a feeder to the 3-foot narrow gauge (914 mm), nicknamed "Baby Gauge" ( Engl. : High-gauge) received. This served the mines south of Ryan and was extended in 1918 to the about 6.4 km south located Widow Mine . Milwaukee gasoline locomotives with lorries that could each load 3 tons of ore were initially used on it. The ore was then transferred to the DVRR wagons at a large wooden transfer station, from where it was brought to Death Valley Junction of the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad. In 1923 new Plymouth gasoline locomotives with friction clutches were used. After the mining was stopped in 1927, some lorries were equipped with benches to offer tourists excursions into the disused mine.

In December 1960, consideration was given to reopening a 4.5 km (2.8 miles) section of the 6 km (3.8 miles) long track of the "Baby Gauge" narrow-gauge railway for tourist trains. The cost of the necessary track construction work was estimated at $ 25,511 to $ 36,728, depending on whether the Grand View Tunnel was to be used. Due to the costs of restarting and the unresolved question of liability, these plans have not yet been implemented.

Vehicle inventory

Heisler steam locomotive "Francis"

The DVRR carried out its operations exclusively with its own vehicles.

The first locomotive of the DVRR was a Heisler steam locomotive called "Francis", which previously ran on the Borate and Daggett Railroad and was initially used in railway construction. After the line was completed, the locomotive was used in shunting service until 1916 and then sold to the Northwest Pacific Railroad as a construction locomotive .

For train service, the DVRR procured a new steam locomotive with a 1'D ( Consolidation ) wheel arrangement from Baldwin in July 1914 and added it to the vehicle fleet with the number “1”. In May 1916 Baldwin delivered an identical locomotive, which was given the number "2". These locomotives remained with the DVRR until they closed down.

In 1927 Brill delivered a four-axle petrol railcar that was used in tourism.

The freight car park consisted of 22 cars. Mainly these were four-axle self-unloading wagons for ore transport, there were also tank wagons for the water supply and a two-axle freight train escort car ( caboose ). A four-axle passenger car was sufficient for passenger transport.

business

Death Valley Railroad at Ryan

A mixed train ran on the DVRR every day except Monday. In the direction of Ryan, the train carried material, water and food for the mining settlement ; in the opposite direction, the cargo consisted mainly of borates that were transported from the mines to Death Valley Junction for ore processing. From 1928, the railcar operated according to the same timetable.

To	Timetable of November 14, 1915	Back
11:15	Death Valley Junction	15:15
11:30	Horton	15:00
12:30	Colmanite	14:50
12:40	Ryan	13:40

The steam locomotives drove ahead on the route with the chimney. To turn the locomotives, there were track triangles in Death Valley Junction and Ryan. Since the Brill railcar only had one driver's cab, this also had to be turned at the end points.

conservation

DVRR # 2 at the Borax Museum in Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park

Baby Gauge Plymouth locomotive at the Upper Biddy Tunnel

The Death Valley Railroad locomotives are all still intact. When the United States Potash Railroad switched to diesel in the 1950s, the locomotives formerly used on the Death Valley Railroad were classified as worthy of preservation:

No. 1 with the inscription "US Potash" on the side walls of the tender was brought to Carlsbad , New Mexico and placed there between Park Drive and E. Riverside Drive.
No. 2 was sold to Death Valley National Park by the United States Potash Railroad and is on display at the Borax Museum in Furnace Creek.
The Brill rail bus was used by the United States Potash Railroad to take the workers and visitors into the mines. When it was worn out in 1967, it was rescued from scrapping by the Laws Rail Museum in Bishop , California, and now runs on their narrow-gauge rails.
The Heisler steam locomotive "Francis" came over the Nevada Short Line Railway and from there to the forest railway of the Terry Lumber Company (the later Red River Lumber Company). After their sawmill burned down in 1925, the forest railway was shut down and the locomotive was dismantled into individual parts, the remains of which were still rusting on the sawmill site.
The bogies of some of the DVRR trucks are in the Laws Rail Museum today, and the # 100 Caboose is on the grounds of the Potash Refinery in Loving, New Mexico. The DVRR tank cars are outside Carlsbad.
One of the "Baby Gauge" Plymouth locomotives is still in working order together with a cart in one of Ryan's mine tunnels.

literature

David F. Myrick: Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California - The Southern Roads. University of Nevada Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87417-193-8 .
Gordon Chappell: To Death Valley by Rail. A Brief History of the Death Valley Railroad. In: Death Valley Conference on History & Prehistory, James A Pisarowicz, Death Valley Natural History Association, Death Valley '49ers (Ed.): Proceedings: Third Death Valley Conference on History & Prehistory. Death Valley Natural History Association, Death Valley, Calif. 1992, ISBN 1-878900-26-9 , (conference proceedings).
Robert P. Palazzo: Railroads of Death Valley. Arcadia Publishing, 2011.
Hugh C. Tolford: Take the train to Death Valley. Death Valley Railroad Ltd. Keepsake # 35, originally issued for Death Valley '49ers Encampment, Aug. 8-12. November 1995.