By Cheryl Jahn

Little Prince back on the rails

May 23, 2023 | 3:56 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – One by one, crews are replacing rail ties for the last wood-fired 24-inch gauge locomotive in North America. It’s getting ready for the summer season, when it would couring thousands around LheidliT’enneh Memorial Park all summer long.

“Well, he’s a 1912 dinky engine,” says Tracy Calogheros, CEO for Exploration Place. “It is a wood-fired steam engine, and it is the only one that I have been able to find anywhere in the world for sure. It’s the only one in North America. And he was there at the last spike. So this is an important piece of Canadian history. He was there for the Grand Trunk Pacific.”

But the fact of the matter is that the Little Prince is not owned by Exploration Place. It never has been. The museum actually only operates the Little Prince. But it’s not cheap.

“There is nothing cheap about operating a railroad,” says Calogheros. “Let me warn anyone who’s ever aspired to do so. It can go from just a few thousand dollars in a year. And there’s been some years we’ve paid up to $60-and $70,000. It just depends on how much moves and whether there’s rot in the ties or whether we get a sudden kink in a long line.” The City has set aside money pay for the train and, in particular , the quonset it calls home for years. But it wasn’t even on the radar this budget. But, ts time is coming.

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“Now we’ve come to the end of life of that shed. So now my next year, we’ve got to have a plan in place,” says City Councillor Garth Frizzell. “So rubber’s hitting the road and we’ve got to find the funding for it and we’ve got to find a place to house the Little Prince or there won’t be a way to keep it and maintain it.”

The Little Prince has historial relevance to the City and Garth Frizzell suggests it may be time to look at outside sources.

“The Railway Act actually predates Confederation, so I think there’s a comment to be made on how important the rail railways have been. The key, though, is really finding the money to build what we need to build.

Typically the Little Prince is on the rails for the May long weekend. But it is going to have an abbreviated season this year.

“We’re going to start this Thursday. It’ll run every Thursday, all summer, weather permitting, from noon until 8:00 at night. We’re doing a big Thursday night thing here in the park with a late opening of the Museum and Origins Kitchen and all the gang in town that have all the old cars and the fancy cars.”