No ghosts here, the Spirit of Kamloops is a steam engine
No ghosts, ghouls or witches can claim the Spirit of Kamloops — it's a fully-operational steam engine that used to sit in Riverside Park.
The train is the last of its kind. It was one of 25 built in 1912 by the Canadian Locomotive Company, in Kingston, Ont. for Canadian Northern Railway before it became the Canadian National Railway, said Ken Milloy, general manager with the Kamloops Heritage Railway.
There’s a historic and more recent connection to 2141, the Spirit of Kamloops.
“Kamloops is a railway town, always has been, always will be,” Milloy said. The city is one of two places in Canada where both Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railway tracks are running side-by-side.
“It’s still a railway town. The yard is downtown. CP has a giant presence in the city, CN runs just outside of the city."
Before COVID-19, the demand for the steam train rides was growing. People also remember playing on the train when it was in Riverside Park.
“People remember that and they remember the train noise, there’s that real sense of pride and ownership,” Milloy said.
“There’s a lot of people in the world that look back on the period of steam as a very romantic period. The steam engines are just so cool to watch and see, they develop their own kind of following around the world, including here in Kamloops."
Before 1885, when the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway made movement across the country cheap and convenient, British Columbia was difficult to access from other parts of Canada.
Construction came to Kamloops in 1883, bringing railway workers and establishing Kamloops as a transportation hub with the railway’s completion in 1886 and a second railway in 1912.
Engine 2141 was never used in Kamloops for its intended purpose. The train hauled freight and passengers in the Prairies and then in Victoria hauling logs and freight before it was retired in 1958. Along came Kamloops mayor John Fitzwater, who took a liking to it, and eventually convinced city council to purchase it for $2,000. It became a monument to the railways and railway families in Riverside Park for the next 33 years.
As it became increasingly expensive to maintain, Kamloops volunteers decided to restore it. Between 1994 and 2002 an estimated $1 million in today’s value was spent putting it back on the railway, Milloy said. From 2002 onward until the pandemic, the train was used for events and rides across the region and the volunteers formed the Kamloops Heritage Railway.
READ MORE: 1959 cross-province train trip starts and ends in Vernon
The train can still run today but there’s currently no track to put it on, Milloy said, because the railways have gotten busier in the last few years.
“The restoration of the piece took between 80,000 to 100,000 hours of man time,” he said. “It sits here as part of our display and we’re building other exhibits about railway history and the railway in Kamloops, as a bit of a museum using old box cars and passenger cars as exhibit rooms.”
You can see the train by booking at tour with the heritage park online. Tours are held Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays at 40 Mount Paul Way in Kamloops.
“It’s the last of its kind to remain.”
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