Ever wonder why a train didn’t roll through Tucson in any of the 1870’s-era The High Chaparral episodes? In reality, trains were not introduced in Tucson until the 1880’s and so travel there was by the Stagecoach lines. Yet, on any trip to the Old Tucson studios west of Tucson, you may come across an iron horse called The Reno with an attached tender. Some people may not realize the wonderful history that this old engine has to offer. It was built in 1872 by the Baldwin Company, shortly after the Transcontinental Railroad was completed which linked both the East and the West coasts. The Reno, No. 11, is a 65,000 pound relic that was built to link Virginia City to Reno, Nevada, where in 1872 was used to serve the Comstock Lode mining and railroading business. Owned by the Virginia & Truckee Railroad, the engine was considered their gem of the line and allowed passengers to venture north so that it would be possible to travel west to San Francisco or places out East. According to the Gold Hill Daily News on September 2, 1972 the following was written:
“The train stopped at Virginia only about half an hour, and returned to Reno, the passengers remaining at Virginia. The locomotive Reno is the largest and best on the road – equal to the best on the Central Pacific. It is finished in very tasteful and handsome style, the cylinders being trimmed off with brass and all the other work elaborately and elegantly finished, On the occasion the Reno was beautifully decorated with flowers, wreaths, ribbons, flags, etc., and looked splendidly, attracting a large crowd at the depot.”

The Reno in 1878

She ran on those tracks up until 1932 and had carried not only freight and passengers but was also used specifically to carry two US presidents, Ulysses S. Grant, and Theodore Roosevelt when they had ventured out West. After the Depression, she was sold in the 1930s to Paramount Pictures in Hollywood and was used in several movies such as Union Pacific, Annie Get Your Gun and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, along with many other B films. Then in 1970 she was brought to Old Tucson Studios as an attraction and was used in several production films. During the following years, she appeared on many television shows such as Little House on the Prairie, The Wild Wild West; and the movies Support Your Local Gunfighter, Joe Kidd, The Young Pioneers, The Villain, El Diablo, and Gunsmoke III among others. As fate would have it, a devastating fire at the studios in 1995 destroyed all of the wood on the engine and its tender, leaving a charred hulk of iron behind. Two short years later, she has revived once again, like a Phoenix that rose from the ashes, as Hollywood saved her and restored her just enough to appear in the film Wild Wild West.  Since then she has been dormant in the same location at Old Tucson. Hopefully, someday someone will restore her to the original beauty that she once was-the gem of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad line.  Well, as luck would have it,  Tom Gray, owner of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, responded and secured the famed #11 engine from Old Tucson Studios in 2021 with plans for a full restoration. That restoration process is now in progress in Carson City, Nevada.  One thing is for certain, though, she is back home where she started all those years ago!

The Reno After the Old Tucson fire of 1995

The Reno in 2014

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2014 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.