My favorite lost locomotive tale

Apocryphal tales of lost locomotives are fascinating , and surprisingly more than a few are true . Visiting the Huckleberry Railroad in Flint , Michigan a few years ago , they were running their beautiful little Baldwin 4-6-0 . Marty Knox graciously showed me around and I asked a lot of questions about the tenwheeler(my favorite wheel arrangement) . Marty told me its fascinating story .It was ordered new by the Alaska Railroad for a narrow gauge shortline on the other side of the Yukon River from Fairbanks . The line was about 20 miles long and had a little Porter and a used Baldwin 2-8-0 Marty said they had a three rail yard on the Fairbanks side .Cars were ferried in the summer . In the winter ,when the Yukon froze ,trains ran over the ice ! This line petered out around 1930 ,and the 4-6-0 sat a number of years in the ARR roundhouse . It was supposed to go to the WP&Y ,but there was some controversy about whether it ever ran there ,or even went to Skagway. It was assumed it was scrapped with most of the other USA locomotives in Seattle in 1946 . In the 1960s a big salvage yard in Poertland , Oregon found a recycler of a mountain of tires that was growing in one corner . Under it was the 4-6-0 ! Hal Wilmunder brought it down to his Camino , Cailfornia , then sold it to the Huckleberry operation ,where it runs today . Marty or WP&Y Mike might have additions (or corrections) to this "wooly" .