Steamscape: Crown Point Fill. V&T Locomotive #29 charges north with her freight across the wide-open plateau that is the Crown Point Fill. The geography in the town of Gold Hill, NV has been so incredibly altered by mining operations over the past century and a half that today, without a history book in your hand, it is difficult to discern that which was placed by Mother Nature and that which was dumped by the hand of man. Until about 1935, there was a deep ravine underneath the spot where you see the train traveling now. From the very beginning of the Virginia City Line, the "Crown Point Ravine" was traversed by a most impressive, 85 foot-high, 350 foot-long wooden trestle. Historic photos of that trestle depict wood-burning, 4-4-0 locomotives hauling passenger trains bound for Gold Hill and Virginia City beyond it. For a photo of this historic structure click here. In 1935 however, renewed mining activity led to the removal of the trestle and the filling in of the Crown Point Ravine....which must have been quite a task! No sooner was the fill completed and an alternate route for the tracks created, when the V&T's business in Gold Hill again dried up, this time for good. The line from Carson City was shut down in 1938, and by 1941, the rails were gone.
Tracks for the present-day Virginia & Truckee tourist line were re-laid in as part of Phase 1 of the Nevada State reconstruction effort in 2005. Needless to say, the stretch you see here is probably one of the flattest spots on the entire reconstructed line.
