Tanana Valley Railroad Museum, Alaska

A TVRR train crosses a trestle bridge at the head of Fox Gulch, 1916.

Returned to steam again after 3 years of restoration in 2000 by the friends of the Tanana Valley Railroad in Fairbanks, Alaska, is engine number 1.

The TVRR originated as the Tanana Mines Railway in 1905 and was renamed the Tanana Valley Railroad, a 3-ft gauge line, in 1907. The company declared bankruptcy and the railway was bought by the US government in June 1917, and the section between Fairbanks and Happy was converted to dual gauge by the Alaskan Engineering Commission Railroad, in order to complete a standard-gauge railway line from Seward to Fairbanks. This line became the Alaska Railroad in 1923. The Alaska RR continued to operate the former TVRR narrow-gauge line as the Chatanika Branch, until decommissioning it in 1930.

In 1922 engine No. 1 was retired and remained unused until 2000. A small museum was built in 2005 in Pioneer Park, Fairbanks, and a track for the train winds through the park. Website