Many railway fans have a bit of smile on their faces today. Old 219 has been saved.
Built in 1907, the 4-6-0 locomotive, with its 57″ drivers, served on the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario line first as #119.
In 1935 it became #219 before been declared surplus in 1938 and sold to Normetal, a town in northern Quebec .
Then in 1975 Ontario Northland bought 219 back from the Quebec town with the idea of turning it into an excursion train.
(T&NR had become Ontario Northland in 1946. They changed the name as their boxcars sometimes were misdirected to the US because of a railway called the “Texas & New Orleans railroad, also T&NO, while also sometimes receiving invoices that should have gone to the Texas line.)
A close examination however showed it would require too much work to restore to working condition, and it spent years as a track bumper in the Cochrane yard, its probable fate to become scrap metal.
Then in 2012, the Northern Ontario Railway Museum purchased it from Ontario Northland for $5001.00,
The intent is to restore it to display level at their site as the oldest surviving locomotive of the T&NO railway.
However transporting it from Cochrane to the museum in Capreol was a rather more expensive proposition at around $40,000.
This week the loco was loaded on a specialized rail flatcar from Cochrane to Capreol, where it will be transported by truck from the rail yard to the heritage site.
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