The 1880s railroad venture backed by George Pusch that hoped to bring trains through Oro Valley but never made it past the wash.
Written by Devon Sloan, June 2023
Narrow Gauge Railroad
All Aboard!!! We could have heard those words at a train station as close as Magee and Oracle Roads if the Directors of the Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad Company had succeeded. On June 1, 1886, work resumed on a 386-foot-long bridge across Rillito wash that had been started at the train depot in Tucson in 1883. Work continued through the summer, but a downpour destroyed the Rillito wash bridge in September 1887, and construction was again stopped.
Narrow Gauge Locomotive
It was a few months later that George Pusch, his partner, John Zellweger, and others reorganized this narrow-gauge railroad to standard gauge and named it the Tucson Globe and Northern Railroad Company. Their vision was to complete the job to link Tucson to Globe (110 miles) and then to Espanola, New Mexico for a total of 430 miles. The goal was to transfer freight and passengers through the southwest. The fees would have been 15 cents/ton/mile for freight and 10 cents/mile for passengers.
Map of Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad through Oro Valley
Because of financing issues, the railroad was never completed. So, instead of a train station at Oracle and Magee, we are fortunate enough to be able to visit Tohono Chul!
Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad, by PacificNG.org, December 28, 2015
Oro Valley Was a Part of the “Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad”, as featured in LOVE (Let Oro Valley Excel)
The Arizona Narrow Gauge Railroad – Tucson’s Forgotten Railroad, by Julian Sanchez, published June 18, 2024