10/27/2026
"The Sole Survivor"
This week Amy Watt Wiles and Anthony R. Alonso drove up to Ely to spend time with Mark Bassett at the Nevada Northern Railway. More than 50 railroads were built in Nevada starting in 1860. Mark's is "the sole survivor."
The next morning, Mark walked them to the spot where he decided what his life would be about. In 2004, his master mechanic, Jack Anderson, was getting locomotive 40 ready for a boiler inspection. "Jack is doing this. I'm raising the money so he can do this." Then one November morning came the call. "His wife and son are bawling their eyes out. And across the room, underneath a blanket, I can see a pair of boots. Jack had died that morning."
That night, Mark said, he came back to the engine house and "I stood right where you are… and it was like, now what am I going to do? And so that night… I made a vow that I would train young men and women in how to do this. And we've kept that vow ever since."
The vow came with faces. Don Henley called Mark at 16 asking for an internship. "A minor is going to come here from Miami, Florida, to work on this all summer long?" Today he's 32 with a family, and he's the master mechanic. Then there's Arthur, a kid from North Jersey like Anthony. On his first day they sent him under locomotive 93 with a power washer, and he came out covered in grease from head to toe. "He came back the next day." Now he has his diesel mechanics associate's degree and works there full time.
Over dinner, Mark told them how the superintendent started in his gift shop and worked her way up. We told him, "Sounds like you have a real family here." He said, "We do." We told him we're the same Catapult Fundraising. "A lot of the senior leadership have been with us for 20-plus years… we grew up together."
Then Anthony told him the truth:
"I feel incredibly blessed. The last 35-plus years, I've been able to get up every day and know what I'm doing is having an impact on people's lives… I can think of nothing better than that. And you know what the coolest thing about it is? That one day I'm here with you at the Nevada Northern Railway, the next day I'm at a children's hospital, and I'm learning things I would have never really ever known about."
A grieving man's vow, a 16-year-old from Miami, a kid from Jersey covered in grease, and a fundraiser from Newark standing in the same engine house. That was the job that day! We are blessed.
