On the Loneliest Highway in America, a place they call it the “Big Empty,”  you find miles and miles of nothing. In the middle of it all, you find Ely, Nevada. You have to really want to go there to get there. And yet people from all over the world are finding their way to this tiny eastern Nevada town for the love of the rails. Ely is home to the Nevada Northern Railway.  It had been an old mining railroad at the turn of the century — until the copper mine closed.

The track, the cars, the old steam engines were heading to the scrapper — but then this small town had to audacity to ask — “Will you give it to us?” Kennecott Mining Company said “yes” — and lovers of old steam engines have been celebrating ever since. It’s not just a world class museum, it’s a working rail yard just as you would have found it in the early 1920’s. And here you can ride the train, wander the yard, and for a price — become the engineer on one of these historic old steam engines. Here’s at look at the group attracting attention from around the world.