Many local residents were heading downto the White Pass freight yard last Friday to take pictures of an unusual relic of the goldrush era in the Klondike ... old engine Number One.
Built in Pittsburgh in 1904 by H.K. Porter Co. it was shipped north to be put in use on the Klondike Mines Railroad that ran from Dawson City to King Solomon Dome, at the head of Hunker Creek.
The Klondike Mines Railroad was one of the shortest in the world, serving the gold miners on the adjoining creeks. The railroad was not a financial success and stopped rugnning in 1912.
The weathered cab of old No. 1 is still in good condition but the old-type diamond smokestack is corroded from years of facing the elements... wind, snow, frost and sleet. The locomotive, no bigger than a donkey engine, was used during the
earlier days of the Klondike to move the heavy materials used in building some of the gold
dredges in that region.
A tourist in the Yukon this summer, Roger Burnell, spied the old locomotive while he was visiting Bear Creek, operational headquarters for Yukon
Consolidated Gold Corporation. It was resting on a segment of old iron tracks in a nearby junk yard, along with a lot of other old, discarded machinery..... dredge buckets, tumblers, iron spuds and other equipment relegated to the yard. Burnell immediately recognized its value as a collector's item and bought it from YCGC.
Brought to Whitehorse by truck and lowboy, it was loaded on a White Pass flatcar for transit to Skagway over the week end and thence to Vancouver.
Many Yukoners had mingled feelings of nostalgia and sadness to see the little locomotive heading out of the country. Local residents felt it would have been a big attraction for the tourists who flock into the Klondike each season.
ONE IN DAWSON
A phone call to Jack Sealey, assistant YCGC manager at Dawson, confirmed the sale but Mr. Sealey advised that a similar engine is on display in Minto Park, south of the Administration Building, (now a museum) in Dawson City.
There were only two of this type he said. Several other larger locomotives used on the Klondike Mines Railroad are also on display in the park.
Many visitors viewing the engine could easily visualize Old Number One, with a bit of paint and renovation, as something right out of a Disney film... and perhaps that's where the long-ignored, toy-like locomotive will end its colorful career.
