Western Arizona Railroad - Update July 2012

This past February, I spent a day checking out some station locations along the abandoned Arizona & Utah/Western Arizona RR that is located on the eastern edge of Golden Valley (also referred to as Sacramento Valley) just west of Kingman AZ. I also wanted to try and identify where a 1906 section of the line had ended when the money ran out.

The majority of the line was abandoned in 1933 but a short section that forked to the northwest of the main section, was abandoned in 1906. The original plans for this section were for it to eventually be extended north into Nevada and perhaps even into Utah as the early name of the line seems to imply. This short section of line is easy to follow on Google Earth but was unclear, to me anyway, where it went to the west of the Highway 93. After looking at for it on Google Earth for at least the tenth time, I saw what looked like the rest of the section. I don't know how I missed it all the previous times I looked for it.  The black "x's" on the image below indicate the abandoned grade.

I parked along Hwy. 93, walked west, and quickly found the faint grade. I wasn't even sure it was a grade until I spotted a lone rail spike along the grade. The line only extended a few hundred meters more where it abruptly ended. There is a wooden stake at the very end of the line.

I had acquired some copies of maps of the line that were developed by the Santa Fe. The maps show all seven stations that were located along the line. I used Google Earth to attempt to locate each of the sites. Only two sites could be identified. The others have been covered by more recent development. The station in Chloride may still exist but I don't know what building it might be and I haven't yet looked into it. The two station sites that were visible were Cerbat and Mineral. This Cerbat is NOT the Cerbat townsite in the Cerbat Mtns. All that was visible from the imagery were obvious cleared areas and, at Cerbat, a faint outline that I couldn't identify. Both sites were easy to locate on the ground. Cerbat is accessible by a dirt road and Mineral is adjacent to the main paved road that goes to the Duval Mine. The Cerbat site was much less altered than the Mineral site. At Cerbat there is a water catchment feature, a building outline, scattered cans, glass, and a few complete bottles. The water catchment would suggest that cattle were held here and transported on the train. There is also a large area that is covered by remains of greenish ore from the nearby mines in the Cerbat Mtns.

Cerbat Station

Foundation at the Cerbat Station site.  Duval Mine is visible in the background.

Scattered trash at the Cerbat Station site

Water troughs at Cerbat Station site

Water catchment, Cerbat Station

The Mineral station site has been heavily disturbed but there is a huge amount of old cans and glass scattered around. There were a few metal tags scattered around the site that had "ATSF" (Atchison Topeka Santa Fe) stamped on them. I think they were security tags used on the boxcar doors to prevent tampering of the doors.