Re: Harrah’s and Pomderosa Ranch’s RR collections?

o anderson Wrote:
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> The last time I was at the Harrah's site, in the
> summer or fall of 2013, there was still maybe 150
> feet of 3' gauge track in place, and the open
> sided enginehouse. There were a few other display
> buildings in various states of decay. The large
> old brick warehouse that was the auto museum has
> had a succession of renters, and a large covered
> hopper (I think) was parked outside of it on
> isolated track.

The location is the old Pacific Fruit Express ice plant for servicing refrigerator cars. There was some track outside the complex next to the parking lot on which the ex-SPng equipment was stored. I seem to recall that there was a section of track inside that came out of the engine house in which the 2-6-2 was displayed.
>
> The narrow gauge track was original 30 lb C&C
> rail. The enginehouse had a smokejack installed
> for firing up the steam locomotive.

The report was that for a long-time Eureka-Nevada #7 would be fired up once a year and run out of the glass-sided engine house just to exercise it.
>
> That is a sketchy area of Sparks. Looks like the
> track and enginehouse were still there in 2018.
> Still owned by Harrahs?

Do not know who owns the land. The Harrahs hotels and casinos are now part of Caesars Entertainment Corporation. The auto collection was disassembled after Bill Harrah died in 1978. The collection apparently was owned by his hotel and casino business that was acquired by Holiday Inn. After a few years the auto collection was auctioned off with some items being donated. Some of the vehicles went to the automobile museum now located near downtown Reno. Bill Harrah was not satisfied to have a few representative cars -- he had each year of each model!!! It is said that the collection amounted to 1,450 vehicles.

Brian Nordeen