Waterloo Mining Railroad
The Southern Pacific Railroad built a railroad line to the nearest town of Daggett about 10 miles (16 km) away, to become involved in the silver mining business, and in return, supply the residents of Calico with goods, timber and whatever else was needed to keep the mines going.
In March 1885, plans were put forward for a standard gauge line to be built from the junction at Daggett, to branch off to the silver mines and mills, and connect with Calico to provide a direct rail service with trains incoming from Barstow and Needles.
However, the Calico mines were already showing signs of declining production, and the rising costs of transportation and the falling prices of silver made the project unfeasible.
The line never actually reached Daggett, but luckily the town was right over the river from the mill at Elephant Mountain, so whenever something needed to be shipped over to Daggett, either the local wagon roads took the goods to the town or people walked across the riverbed whenever it was dry.
The locomotives and rolling stock were stored at the engine house located near to the Waterloo Mill, on the north-west side of the Mojave River close to the location of the current road bridge linking Daggett and Yermo.
In 1897, the Pacific Coast Borax Company began constructing the Borate and Daggett Railroad to link the nearby borax mines of Borate to the standard-gauge railway at Daggett, and were short on locomotives to run the line.
In 1899, the American Borax Company bought mining claims at Lead Mountain, about four miles (6.4 km) west of Calico, to mine boric acid and plotted to build a railroad to reach Daggett across the river where they had their processing plants.
They had also leased the line's first locomotive "Uncle Dan," to operate the borax trains outgoing from Lead Mountain.
After Connell had been contracted to tear up the rail line towards Calico and all the wooden structures in the town, Waterloo Mining Co. gave full ownership of the railroad to American Borax to use the remainder of the line for the borax traffic from the Columbia Mine at Lead Mountain.
Rolling stock consisted of at least four ore wagons built at the Virginia & Truckee Railroad's shops at Carson City, Nevada, along with a water car.
The 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge Calico & Odessa Railroad was built by Shafe-Malcom Enterprises in 1954.
The original line began below at the mouth of Wall Street Canyon, and is now a paved road for tourists to access Calico from Interstate 15.
Some segments of the old railbed can still be traced out in some places in the desert, but much has now been covered by housing developments of Yermo.
