ABOVE: Two children come up to the fence to watch Tanana Valley No. 1 completing its one- mile loop. An old TV boxcar (sans trucks) is part of the museum’s collection. RIGHT: The NRHS night photo session included props from the collection at Pioneer Park.
restored in 2002. Today the park is free to enter, although many of the individ- ual museums charge admission. Pioneer Park has three railroad at- tractions within its 44 acres. First is an observation car used by President War- ren G. Harding when he participated in the ceremony completing the Alaska Railroad in 1923. Second is the narrow gauge Crooked Creek & Whiskey Is- land Railroad, a three-foot gauge line that circumnavigates the park on about a mile of track and uses a small diesel locomotive for power. The third is the Tanana Valley Railroad Museum, which is home to interior Alaska’s only operating steam locomotive. TVRM has two buildings within Pio- neer Park, a large shop building and a smaller museum. It
is in this shop
where Tanana Valley No. 1, and 0-4-0T, has been restored. Built by H.K. Porter in 1899, No. 1 was pur- chased by the North American Trans- portation & Trading Co. for hauling coal from Cliff Creek, 50 miles from Dawson, Yukon Territory. It was sold
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to the Coal Creek Coal Co. in 1903 and in 1905 it was sold again, this time to the Tanana Mines Railway (later the Tanana Valley Railroad), becoming the first steam locomotive in interior Alas- ka. The Tanana Valley was absorbed by the Alaska Railroad in 1917 and re- mained on the ARR roster (albeit “unfit for service”) until it was donated to the City of Fairbanks in 1927 and placed on display at the station. It was moved to
Pioneer Park for the Alaska centennial in 1967, and then leased to the Friends of the Tanana Valley Railroad, Inc., in 1992 for restoration and operation. The museum was built in 2005 and opened in 2006.
Today No. 1 operates on the one-mile loop around Pioneer Park on a limited schedule. The line features a couple of impressive grades, and the little engine works hard pulling its open-air cars.
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