In December 2014, Roseburg, Ore.’s Stewart Park celebrated the 100th birthday of Steam Engine No. 1229 with a party. One 9-year-old at the party described the 67-ton, oil-burning steam engine as “a beautiful piece of history.”
The Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio, built the Southern Pacific switcher in 1914. Engine 1229 worked for Southern Pacific for 43 years in California, moving railroad cars around the switchyards. The engine was retired in 1957 and moved from Oakland, Calif., to Stewart Park in Roseburg. It was not caged or fenced in, but free for children of all ages to climb aboard.
Fir Grove Elementary School third graders attended the birthday party. One of them thanked “all the people who helped make it a good place for kids to play.”
Also attending was Theodore “Ted” Bernard, who worked as trainmaster for Southern Pacific in Roseburg in the 1950s and 1960s and helped bring No. 1229 to Roseburg. Friends remember Bernard’s office was in what is now a restroom at a popular restaurant that occupies the old railroad station.
Source: Andrews, Garret. “100 years and full steam ahead.” The News-Review 11 Dec. ’14. [Roseburg Ore.]. Print
