For more than 80 years, the Virginia & Truckee (V&T) Railroad linked Reno, Carson City, Virginia City and Minden in western Nevada. This rail system was a lifeline during the mining days in the late 1860s and for dozens of years after. In western Nevada it was Comstock ore that needed to be hauled through the sometimes dusty and dry desert to quartz reduction mills along the Carson River.

The mining production came to a halt dozens of years ago, but today visitors can travel by train on the V&T Railroad from Caron City to Virginia City, located about 14 miles apart. The Wild West is alive and thriving in this part of the state, and it all begins at the ticket depot where people are dressed in appropriate time period garb. The train is made up of the locomotive and three cars from back in the day, complete with springy seats and hard-to-open windows.

On board, passengers are invited to sit wherever they’d like for the duration of the hour-and-a-half ride. (If you’d like to take photos, your best choice for seating is a forward-facing seat on the right side of the car next to a window.) With a few long whistles from the locomotive, the train takes off for Virginia City, an old mining town fashioned with character and complete with old-time photo shops, saloons and stores selling Western gear.

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