Tonopah & Tidewater #4 hauling supplies out of Ludlow, California, ca. 1906.

Railroad Lines

There were three railroad lines in the area:


  • The T&T (Tonopah & Tidewater) Railroad stretching 160 miles from Ludlow, California, to Gold Center, Nevada (south of Beatty).


  • The LV & T (Las Vegas & Tonopah) Railroad that stretched 210 miles from Las Vegas to Tonopah, Nevada. Montana Senator William Clark owned the LV & T along with the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad. Later, all were purchased by the Union Pacific.


  • The Bullfrog & Goldfield Railroad that stretched 67 miles from Goldfield, Nevada to Rhyolite. This line paralleled the LV & T Railroad.

Tonopah & Tidewater #1, a Baldwin 4-6-0 steam locomative built for the Wisconsin and Michigan Railroad, and later going to T&T in 1904. It was used for passenger service and shutning trains between yards. It was scrapped in 1941, and the bell saved at the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society in Pomona, CA.

Circa 1907 map of the Tonopah Tidewater line from southern California into Nevada.

Reconstruction of Tonopah & Tidewater engine 1, based on photographs and descriptions, pulling into the Beatty Depot. Mural in Beatty, Nevada, painted by Laura Cunningham, 2009.

The entire mural 100 feet long, 2009.

Map of the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad through Sarcobatus Flat, 1980.

Wikipedia has a good entry on more details of the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad and related lines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonopah_and_Tidewater_Railroad

First car on the Tonopah & Tidewater ca. 1906. Mural painted by Laura Cunningham, 2009, Beatty, NV.