Railway above the clouds. With a sea of lingering morning clouds in the valley just below her, the former McCloud Railway #18 hauls a short freight across the fill that spans the eastern edge of the Overman Pit, in Gold Hill, Nevada.
When a Nevada State Commission decided to pursue reconstruction of the Virginia & Truckee line from Carson City to Virginia City, the most formidable obstacle was the 120 foot deep hole in the ground that you see in the foreground of this photo. The defunct strip mine known as "Overman Pit" was dug after the original V&T Virginia City Branch was dismantled in 1938. In order to reconstruct the line, a massive fill had to be created, bridging the two ends of this pit and facilitating the relaying of the rails. The first engineering study of the project began in 1992 and it wasn't until 2005 that the fill was finally completed and the track re-installed. Approximately 300,000 cubic yards of material were used to bridge the pit, and although the resulting earthen structure is very impressive to on-lookers and passengers alike, this location remains a concern for the state commission. Settling of the soil is an on-going problem and periodic maintenance is required to maintain a smooth track-bed.
