Niagara Railway Museum gets 2 locomotives donated to them from Marineland
Published July 5, 2023 at 12:47 pm
Somewhere locomotive fanatic Sheldon Cooper’s head just exploded.
Granted while he’s just a fictional character on a TV show, the two pieces just added to the Niagara Railway Museum are anything but make-believe.
In fact, the Fort Erie museum got two new locomotives added to their collection from the unlikeliest of sources – Marineland in Niagara Falls.
As the museum explains it, John Holer, the initial owner of Marineland, bought the two locomotives from Yugoslavian company, Duro Dakovic Locomotive Technica, 42 years ago in 1981.
“His original plans for the park were to include a lengthy boat ride, a monorail system, and the train. That sadly never materialized,” said the museum.
While Holer passed away in 2018, his family still continues to operate the oft-times controversial marine park and less than two months ago, they reached out to the museum, asking if they were interested in the two locomotives.
The museum jumped on the opportunity “as there was a possibility they may end up meeting the torch,” meaning dismantled and sold for scrap.
On Monday (July 3), the heavy-duty flatbed trucks from Pioneer Heavy Haul dutifully picked up the two locomotives from the Marineland storage facility and shifted them to the museum at 21 Warren St.
From there, Falcon Crane was called in yesterday (July 4) with their 200-ton equipment to shift them from flatbed to train track.
The museum is pumped to “welcome what are quite possibly the two most elusive steam locomotives in Canada. Built by Duro Dakovic Locomotive Technica in 1955 & 1958, (locomotive numbers) 62.118 and 62.129 were moved out of their home (at MarineLand) for the first time in 42 years on Monday evening.”
“Despite never operating here, they now have more history to Niagara, than they did overseas as they’ve now been here longer than there,” said the museum.
This coming weekend, July 8 and 9 is the museum’s Open Weekend from 10 am to 4 pm both days.
“It will also feature the official welcome at 11 am for our new locomotives with some words from our President Ken Jones Jr. along with cake for our visitors. We hope you’ll come out to visit our sisters.”
Call the Niagara Railway Museum at (905) 357-6539 for more information.
Above left: Engine 62.118 being unloaded at the shop while above right, Engine 62.129 is elevated by the crane. Below: A heavy-duty flatbed truck from Pioneer Heavy Haul has one of the two lifted off it by the 200-ton crane.
