Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad

Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad

Map showing the route of the T&T.
Overview
Headquarters	Ludlow, California
Reporting mark	T&T
Locale	Ludlow, California, to Gold Center, Nevada (later extended to Beatty, Nevada, and Goldfield, Nevada, by way of the Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad in 1908)
Dates of operation	1904; 120 years ago (1904) – 1940; 84 years ago (1940)
Technical
Track gauge	4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Route map Legend Bullfrog Goldfield Railroad Beatty Carrara Ashton Leeland Jenifer Scranton Death Valley Junction Death Valley Railroad Evelyn Shoshone Zabriskie Tecopa Acme Sperry Dumont Valjean Riggs Silver Lake Baker Soda Raser Crucero Mesquite Broadwell Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Ludlow This diagram: view talk edit

The Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad (reporting mark T&T) was a former class II railroad that served eastern California and southwestern Nevada.^[1]

The railroad was built mainly to haul borax from Francis Marion Smith's Pacific Coast Borax Company mines located just east of Death Valley, but it also hauled lead, clay, feldspar, passengers and general goods across the desert to a connection with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad at Ludlow, California, and to the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad (later Union Pacific Railroad) at Crucero, California.

The railroad was originally intended to run from Tonopah, Nevada to San Diego, California (the "tidewater"), but never made it to either on its own rails. It was famous for being the last of the three railroads built to cross the Death Valley region, and outlasting them by over 30 years providing dedicated and reliable service to the desert residents. The T&T also formed part of a potential north-south transcontinental railroad route, connected together by four different US railway companies, later used as the basis to potentially form a Mid-Pacific Railroad.^[2]

The railroad operated from 1907 until 1940, when it suspended operations due to a lack of profitable traffic. The rails were taken up in 1943 for use in World War II and the company itself was officially abandoned by 1946.^[3]