Little Prince Needs Help

PRINCE GEORGE — The ice crunches with a walk inside the shed that holds the Little Prince train. The Little Prince is the only 24-inch gauge, wood-fired steam engine in North America. But its home is inadequate. The roof leaks and the tracks inside the hut have sunk to below the level of the surrounding landscape. It all adds up to flooding. And, the newest weather phenomenon for this region is freeze-thaw cycles. That’s even worse for the train.

“The track is steel and wood and it’s held together with pegs,” says Tracy Calogheros, Executive Director for the Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre. “So as you freeze and thaw, you get expansion and contraction which then loosens all the connectors that hold the rail in place.”

While the train delights children and others with rides around Lheili T’enneh Memorial Park each summer, its beginnings were more humble. Built in 1912, the Little Prince was one of the workhorses that helped build the Grand Trunk Pacific railway. And, because of that, Calogheros says there could be a case made that the Little Prince is a national treasure.

“Given that the Grand Truck was so important to the development of Canada and Confederation, actually linking coast to coast was so important, these engines where they did that work – where they moved materials, they moved crews and took them out to the railhead where they were doing the work – it wouldn’t have happened without machines like this one. It is a national treasure for sure.”