year in which the railroad had failed to make a profit. Mining revenue had dropped off to very low levels, though revenue from the Minden line continued to flow. Passenger revenue was on a steady decline, due to the increased use of the automobile on the ever-expanding highway system in the US. US 395 ran alongside the V&T from Minden all the way up to Reno and US 50 ran from South of Carson City over to Mound House and the turnoff to Nevada State Route 17 (later NV 341), the route to Virginia City. The sole owner of the railroad in 1933 was Ogden Livingston Mills, grandson of original co-founder Darius Ogden Mills. He personally paid the deficits in the railroad's operating costs as a nod to the past and his family's involvement in the early days of Virginia City. In 1938, a year after Mills' death, the railroad went into receivership, and its management began making plans to cease operations, with the Virginia City branch already having been dismantled during that year. At the time of the railroad's closure, it had only three locomotives operating, the second no. 25 as well as numbers 26 and 27 (all 4-6-0's built by Baldwin in 1905, 1907, and 1913, respectively). The no. 26 was originally scheduled to haul the last train, but after making its run on May 1, 1950, the single-stall locomotive shed it was stored in on the banks of the Truckee River in Reno caught fire. The 26, deemed as a total loss, was scrapped, and the road instead restored no. 27 for the occasion. On May 31, 1950, the no. 27 pulled the Virginia and Truckee's final train, rather fitting as experts considered, since the 27 was the last engine purchased new by the road. Lucius Beebe, a noted railroad historian, settled in Virginia City with Charles Clegg, a photographer and helped to revitalize the town and interest in the railroad by writing books about the Virginia & Truckee as well as other narrow gauge railroads, such as the Carson and Colorado Railroad, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, and Rio Grande Southern Railroad. Restoring the line In 1972, a Virginia City railroad enthusiast , Robert C. Gray, who as a young man was one of the passengers on the last train to Virginia City in 1938, sought to rebuild the V&T as a tourist line. After gaining