Interesting thoughts. I do, however, think you might overlook a lot of the other economics surrounding many of the operations you mentioned. Doesn't matter how well or how poorly managed a railroad is, if the industry to sustain operations isn't there the railroad will soon cease to exist. Willis Kyle had the YW during a lot of the good times, he also had it during the lowest of the low times as well- not a coincidence both the YW and McCloud River barely made it out of the 1970s, and in all reality had it not been for Kyle and Itel ownership both railroads should have been dead by 1980. Only thing that kept McCloud going for the next several decades was the million plus dollar FRA financed track rehabilitation grant.

I don't remember much about how S&S came into being, I know things were as complicated and contentious in Ely then as they are now. When BHP Nevada Rail quit in 1999 they gave most to all of their equipment to the museum to settle breach of contract claims, the museum sold three of the SD-9s, I think scrapped one, and still operate the last. They also sold a few other pieces from BHP as well, most notably the two ex-SMV 70-tonners. Sometime in the middle 2000s Harry Reid got a rider on a bill that cleared Congress that transferred the right-of-way upon which the NN lies on public land to the city and the museum, effectively making the land theirs. S&S arrived in 2009 under some sort of an agreement with the City and the Museum, they filed with the STB to lease and operate the railroad as a common carrier. S&S brought in a couple pieces of track equipment and basically did little more than clear the brush and tamp and align the existing track structure...they replaced a few ties and a little bit of rail, but otherwise not much else. For motive power they brought in a single GE 45-ton switcher, previously used on the Chelatchie Prairie, Oregon Pacific, Port of Tillamook Bay, and a few other operations, along with an ex-DRGW cupola caboose. Their only business has been car storage, they had a couple hundred covered hoppers stored on the mainline in the Dolly Varden area back around 2010, then nothing up until late 2013 when cars again started trickling into the Shafter interchange, at the moment they have somewhere in the neighborhood of 150-175 tank cars and covered hoppers on the line, all in Shafter. They sent the caboose off to someplace in California about two year ago, maybe more, but the 45-tonner and a tamper sit at Shafter and they have a boom truck and a regulator that have been parked at the end of track at Currie for several years now. They have only ever done anything with the Shafter to Currie segment, as the Shafter-Cobre line has been out of service since 1983 and would need to have both the diamond reinstalled at Shafter and all interchange tracks rebuilt at Cobre should they want to use that part of the line, and NDOT paved the Highway 93 crossing at Currie over a long while back, cutting off anything south from there.

The story goes that when the current operator reopened the Ely mines they wanted rail service, but only if they didn't have to pay anything to put the line back in service, hence they are trucking their ore to a reload in Wendover. The museum has been trying various grants and the like trying to get funding to rebuild the mainline, including the most recent round of TIGER grants, but have yet to land anything.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV