The Route

CCRouteDave Dye has this Interactive map that shows some of the sites along the ROW!

Click on any of the locations listed below to see more:

Keeler       Tramway     

Hwy. 136 crossing       

Mock and Aliso sidings

Dolomite    Lone Pine

Owenyo     Kearsarge

Aberdeen   Tinemaha

Zurich      Laws     Queen

Mt. Montgomery   Candelaria

A Brief History…..

The Carson and Colorado Railway was incorporated on May 10th, 1880, eleven years to the day after the transcontinental railway was completed at Promontory, Utah. It began as a grand conception; a 600 mile line to connect the Carson and Colorado rivers traversing (it’s owners hoped) some of the best mining country in the world. It didn’t work out that way. By the time the line reached Keeler in 1883 the owners realized they’d built “300 miles too far or 300 years too soon”. They hung on for 20 years and then lost interest and sold out to the Southern Pacific.The sale was badly timed too. Only months later there was a tremendous strike at Tonopah allowing SP to recoup its investment, then broad gauge the line from Mound House to Mina. In 1908 Los Angeles built and aqueduct and the S.P. followed with a standard gauge line from the south. Things went reasonably well until the depression hit forcing SP to, between 1938 and 1943, shut down the northern part of the line. This reduced the line down to 69.7 miles between Laws and Keeler.

Feb. 16, 1938. Last train from Mina. (M. H. Ferrell Coll.)
Feb. 16, 1938. Last train from Mina. (M. H. Ferrell Coll.)

The trains of the SP narrow gauge continued on until the dawn of the space age, finally succumbing to progress on April 30th, 1960.