Large Scale Central

Pics from my recent Mojave/Nevada trip

General Discussion
#1

I’ve just finished posting the pics from my latest Mojave/Nevada camping and rocketry trip. Unfortunately I didn’t get to many of the places I’d planned to visit, including Ely, because I lost an expensive rocket and wasted two full days searching for it. So there’s not much that’s directly related to railroading. But there are plenty of photos of mines, mining equipment, and old buildings which may be of interest to modelers. I have additional views of most of these things which I would be happy to email to anyone who needs them for modeling purposes.

http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=3009006&a=32287461

I saw some wildlife on this trip, including an antelope, a coyote, a badger, and a couple foxes. One afternoon a tiny bat quietly fluttered around me, also going in and out of the Trooper, briefly landing here and there. This went on for several minutes before he finally flew away.

I also found a large rock on top of a hill, which had Indian petroglyphs on it. Nearby there were 3-4 “sleeping circles”. These are small round clearings where the natives cleared away the surface rocks to make a smooth place to camp.

I explored some interesting mining areas, in particular the Noonday mines in the Mojave desert and the Nivloc mine in Nevada. The Noonday mines were a series of silver and lead mines. Each of the mines were originally connected by a small mine tram that moved ore from the mines, across a wooden trestle, and then through a tunnel to be loaded into railroad cars on the other side of the mountain. The Tecopa Railroad served the Noonday mines and several other mines in the area, hauling ore to the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad. Both railroads are now defunct.

The Nivloc mine was operated off and on from the turn of the century until the early 1940’s. A steel headframe towers over the shaft, surrounded by several decrepit buildings. Ore from the mine was transported across a wooden trestle to a large wooden orebin. Concrete foundations and other remains mark the site of a sizeable mill.

Although rocketry is a great hobby, garden railroads are superior in a couple of ways:

  1. You don’t have to drive hundreds of miles to run your trains.
  2. You don’t risk losing or disintegrating your expensive trains every time you run them!
#2

Great post and pictures, the rocket photos are very interesting, Thanks for sharing

#3

Fun trip! Thanks for letting us peek.

#4

Now there’s a different take on Historical research…shoot off a rocket to get an aerial view! Wonder if that would work at Clifftop/Kaymoor in the New River Gorge…course recovering the rocket might be problematic…TREES!!!

#5

Better than the “Estes Camroc.”

It was quite a trick to get the rocket to be pointing at something when the ejection charge went and triggered the shutter.