Virginia & Truckee #29. There were 27 locomotives originally built for the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. Nine of these locomotives survive, all of which are in museums. When Robert Gray began rebuilding the V&T Virginia City Line back in 1972, one of his chief concerns was bringing steam back to Virginia City, but he would not have any original equipment with which to do that. When he finally had enough track to begin operations in 1976, he leased the former Dardanelle & Russellville #8, a 4-4-0 locomotive from Shortline Enterprises. Continuing the V&T's original numbering, he renumbered it V&T #28. That lease lasted only one season and was too expensive to renew. Shopping around for an engine of his own, he placed a bid on the locomotive you see here, a Baldwin 2-8-0, originally built in 1916 for the Louisiana & Pacific Railway as their #252. Just 6 years later, it was sold to the Longview Portland & Northern Railway Company, where it had a long career as their #680. The locomotive had come up for auction and Bob Gray was successful in his bid. He brought her to Virginia City and renumbered her 29....the next number in the V&T line. For over 3 decades, she was the primary steam power on the reconstructed line, which eventually reached Gold Hill under Mr. Gray's ownership. Although the Gray's occasionally also used a former Feather River 2-6-2 during the early years, that engine was never owned by the family and never given an official V&T number. It has not run on the V&T in many years.
Although not indigenous to the original V&T, the 29, seen here with a photo freight operating near Scales, is still a pretty good representation of a latter day V&T Locomotive. Although the last 2 engines purchased new by the original railroad, (Numbers 26 & 27) were 4-6-0s, not 2-8-0s, the basic physical profiles of the boiler, cab and tender of both engines look very much like the 29. From a distance, the 27, which survives today in the Comstock History Museum in Virginia City, looks like a dead-ringer for the 29.
