I acquired the 4-4-0 (left) this winter and the 2-6-0 last winter. I purchased the 2-6-0 for use in the Phase III Klondike Mines Railway project. I have delayed that project into the indefinite future. The existing rail line is probably to remain as it is, except inside the bar, for the next several years. The 4-4-0 will probably be used strictly inside the NEW (proposed) bar area on some kind of simplified loop. The 4-4-0 is a very old design that was rarely used by the time the 20th century came around. I have found evidence of only one in use in Alaska. The 2-6-0 was far more common. Three of them were in use on the Copper River & Northwestern Railway, for example, although none were quite as old as the one pictured above. That one, from the 1880s, was of a type used on the White Pass & Yukon Railway in their early years. One of them went to the Klondike Mines Railway as Engine No. 1. The only 4-4-0 I have found apparently went to the Tanana Valley Railway running between Chena and Chatanika. Both engines were narrow gauge.
Meanwhile both of these models remain as "shelf queens." That is, they have never been run, possibly never will be run, and are on display somewhere on the property.
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