The Indian Valley (IV) Railroad was a

shortline railroad A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that operates over a relatively short distance relative to larger, national railroad networks. The term is used primarily in the United States and Canada. In the former, railroads are ...

that was constructed from the Engels Copper Mine to a connection with the

Western Pacific Railroad The Western Pacific Railroad was a Class I railroad in the United States. It was formed in 1903 as an attempt to break the near-monopoly the Southern Pacific Railroad had on rail service into northern California. WP's Feather River Route dire ...

at Paxton, in

Plumas County Plumas County () is a county located in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 19,790. The county seat is Quincy, and the only incorporated city is Portola. The largest comm ...

, northeastern

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

Construction

The Western Pacific line was completed through the Feather River Canyon in 1909. The IV was incorporated on June 30, 1916 and grading commenced a month later. The laying of 56 and 65 pound rails commenced in November 1916. On September 1, 1917 the 21.6 mile line was completed at a cost of $746,483.

Mining

The IV was constructed during a copper boom that ran from 1915-1930 in the area. At the north end of the Plumas Copper Belt was the Engels mine. The Engels mine was named after Henry A. Engels, who settled the area in the 1880s and began to mine

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

. In 1901 the Engels Copper Mining Company was founded. In 1911 the company built a smelter at China Gulch but was soon prohibited by the

U.S. Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's ...

which had stewardship over the land that was within the

Plumas National Forest Plumas National Forest is a 1,146,000-acre (464,000 ha) National forest (United States), United States national forest located in northern California at the northern terminus of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. The Forest was named after i ...

. Prior to the IV, copper ore was hauled over road to Keddie where the ore was loaded into Western Pacific Railroad freight cars and transported to a

smelter Smelting is a process of applying heat and a chemical reducing agent to an ore to extract a desired base metal product. It is a form of extractive metallurgy that is used to obtain many metals such as iron, copper, silver, tin, lead and zin ...

at Garfield, Utah. When the IV opened in 1917, it began hauling passengers and copper ore daily from Lower Camp to the Western Pacific station at Paxton. A year later, the townsite of Engelmine, or Engel, was laid out and gridded near Lower Camp. The townsite peaked in the 1920s when it reached a population of 1,200 people. In 1930 the Engels mine was closed due to the declining value of copper. However, the IV continued to operate to serve the town and residents until 1938, when the railroad and town were dismantled. The houses were moved to Greenville, Quincy and Portola and the last cabin was removed in the 1960s.

Locomotives and Rolling Stock

The standard gauge railroad had two locomotives, #1 and #2. The

2-8-0 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, usually in a leading truck, eight powered and coupled driving wheels on four axles, and no trailing wheels. ...

(consolidation type) locomotives were built in 1891 & 1892 by

Baldwin Locomotive Works The Baldwin Locomotive Works (BLW) was an American manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1825 to 1951. Originally located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, it moved to nearby Eddystone, Pennsylvania, Eddystone in the early 20th century. The com ...

for the

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south fro ...

. The locomotives (D&RG #661 and #668) were sold to IV in December 1916. The locomotives served the IV until the railroad ceased operations and were scrapped in December 1939. The railroad also had a passenger car and two freight cars.

Operations

While the IV was built primarily to serve the copper mine at Engels, it was also a common carrier. Alvin Fickewirth states that the IV was sold to the Western Pacific Railroad (WP) in 1921. A 1931 public timetable published by WP listed the Indian Valley Railroad with two daily round trip trains. However, Donald B. Robertson's book states that the owner of the IV in 1931 was "California-Engels Mining Company". The railroad ceased operations as a common carrier on December 5, 1938. The line was scrapped and removed within two years.

Traffic

*Copper

Legacy

*The Engels Copper mine was the largest

copper mine Copper extraction is the multi-stage process of obtaining copper from its ores. The conversion of copper ores consists of a series of physical, chemical, and electrochemical processes. Methods have evolved and vary with country depending on the ...

in California and yielded 117 million pounds of copper ore. *Indian Valley is the name of the valley where the Engels mine was located.

Route (shown in Western Pacific 1931 Timetable

/h1>
MP 0
Paxton, California Paxton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Plumas County, California, United States. According to the 2020 census, it was unpopulated, down from 14 residents in the 2010 census. History Paxton was once called Soda Bar. A post office called P ...
(Interchange with Western Pacific) MP 4 Indian Falls MP 8
Crescent Mills, California Crescent Mills (formerly, Crescent City and Crescent) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Plumas County, California, United States. Crescent Mills is located southeast of Greenville. The population was 196 at the 2010 census, down from 258 a ...
MP 12 Veramont MP 17 Starks MP 22 Engels The old railroad right of way was paved over by a road, including portions of State Route 89 and Plumas County Road 213.

References

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