Railroad Valley is one of the Central Nevada Desert Basins in the Tonopah Basin and is about long north–south and up to wide, with some southern areas running southwest to northeast.
Description The southern end of the valley begins near Gray Top Mountain (elevation ) and stretches north all the way to Mount Hamilton (elevation ). To the east are the Quinn Canyon, Grant, and White Pine Ranges, while to the west are the Pancake and Reveille Ranges. Most of the valley lies in Nye County, but it crosses into White Pine County at its northern end.
The valley includes numerous springs including Kate Springs and Blue Eagle Springs, ranches such as the Blue Eagle Ranch, and two Tonopah Playas.
The valley has four separate Wildlife Management Areas ("Railroad Valley WMA"), and valley communities include Currant, Crows Nest, Green Springs, Lockes, and Nyala.
The valley is the ancestral home of the Tsaidüka band of Western Shoshone, who are now enrolled in the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe of the Duckwater Reservation.
Natural resources Most of Nevada's oil production (totalling about during 2002) comes from several small oil fields in Railroad Valley, including Eagle Springs, Trap Spring, and Grant Canyon oil fields.
In 1954, the Shell Oil Company drilled the first well. The Eagle Springs Field, as it came to be known, included 14 wells with an average production of approximately per well per year by 1968. As of 1985, only 10 wells remained that together had produced approximately in total. By 1986, when a second oil field was discovered by Northwest Exploration Co, the Valley had 27 wells that were expected to produce .
The Valley also contains a playa with a lithium deposit that is "one of the 10 largest in the world and the largest in North America, with salt deposits thick".
Since the 1990s, NASA has used the flat ground for calibrating satellite geodesy, space-based radar, and height measurements. In June 2023, NASA asked the USA's Bureau of Land Management to set aside from its inventory of federal lands open to potential mineral exploration and mining, in order to ensure that the calibration area was preserved.
See also List of valleys of Nevada
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