Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad
railway line in the United States of America
The Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad (reporting mark FEVR, EVRC) was a 17-mile (27 km) heritage railroad headquartered in Dodge County, Nebraska, which offered excursion services on the line. Its equipment is now owned by the Nebraska Railroad Museum.
The FEVR line extended from Fremont to nearby Hooper. It was originally built in 1869 as part of the larger system, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad (FE&MV) and effectively nicknamed the “Cowboy Line”. In 1903, the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW) acquired the FE&MV and continued to operate the line until 1982, when the section from Fremont to Norfolk (known by C&NW as the West Point Subdivision) was abandoned after flooding along the Elkhorn River damaged the section. From the 1970s until the abandonment in 1982, freight traffic volumes had been mildly declining along this stretch of the Cowboy Line. The museum acquired the Fremont to West Point section in 1985.
Inaugurated on Memorial Day 1986 as an excursion line for the summer months, the trains were powered by 2-8-0 #1702, a 1942 steam locomotive built by Baldwin Locomotive Works. A back-up locomotive, EMD SW1200, Soo Line 2121, was used until 1996. Since then the motive power was FEVR 1219 (née CNW 1219, CNW 319) another EMD SW1200, built in 1962.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad” is railway line in the United States of America. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fremont, Elkhorn and Valley, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “railway line in the United States of America” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5501639. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1869, 1903, 1982 and 1985.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad primary sources, Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad archive and Fremont research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Fremont and Elkhorn Valley Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.