The Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City, Nev., will hold a weekend-long “Motor Car Rally” September 5 to 7. The event will feature more than half a dozen motor cars and mark the 100th anniversary of Tucson Cornelia & Gila Bend Car 401.
TC&GB was constructed by the Edwards Railway Motor Car Company of Sanford, N.C., for service in Arizona. The car remained in regular service until the 1940s, when it was donated to Travel Town in Los Angeles for preservation in 1956. Short Line Enterprises eventually acquired it in the early 1970s. In 1976, the car was briefly used on the “new” Virginia & Truckee out of Virginia City, before being donated to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Carson City in 1985.
Other cars that will be on display or operating during the event will be V&T McKeen Motor Car 22; Rio Grande Southern “Galloping Goose” 7 on loan from the Colorado Railroad Museum; Death Valley Railroad Brill Motor Car 5 from the Laws Railroad Museum & Historic Site; Motor Car “Sarah Kidder” from the Nevada County Narrow Gauge Museum; and replicas of V&T Motor Car 24 and Nevada Central Motor Car 107-C.
The event will feature motor car rides and behind-the-scenes tours. Tickets are on sale now.
—Justin Franz