It's alive. When I started attending the Nevada Northern Railway Museum's annual photo shoots in 2008, Steam Locomotive #81, a 1917 Baldwin Consolidation, was the queen of the East Ely Engine House. Long out of service, derelict and missing some parts, this engine was occasionally mentioned as a restoration candidate, but year after year its only movements were on the coupler of a diesel and only then to find it another out-of-the-way parking spot at the back of the engine house. In 2015, with Locomotive 93 coming up on a 1,472 Service Day Inspection, and with the 40 not far behind it, the museum folks began looking at their options and the prospect of starting a restoration on the 81 was raised again. This time, she was moved to the massive RIP (Repair In Place) building and they started stripping her down. Fortunately, they found that mechanically, she was in pretty good shape, but the process of returning her to operation was going to be expensive. Over the next several years, Museum President Mark Bassett and his crew worked hard on obtaining grants and donations and all of that effort finally began paying dividends in just as the pandemic hit. With public events at a minimum, the museum crew was able to complete the boiler inspection and overhaul of numerous major components of the running gear. First steamed for testing purposes in late 2020, the re-assembly was finally completed in the late summer of 2021, and the engine entered service shortly thereafter.
The second of the two February 2022 Winter Photo Shoots were my first return to Ely since 2015, and my first opportunity to actually see this long-derelict machine in service. She is pictured here at the east end of the East Ely Yard on the late afternoon of Friday, February 25th, passing the old wig-wag signals, headed back to the engine house for a night photo shoot.
