The red line rail car that was damaged by fire in 2021 has been moved from the waterfront to a Yukon government facility to be placed up for public auction later this year.
“The government has decided we no longer have use for this asset,” Yukon department of highways and public works spokesperson Madison Guthrie said. “People will be able to bid for it online through our GovDeals website.”
Guthrie said the trolley that ran along the downtown waterfront is different from the rail car previously located outside the roundhouse. She added there was no replacement for the damaged rail car.
The damaged rail car has its history woven around the territory. It was previously used by White Pass and Yukon Route, which runs between Carcross and Skagway.
Local historian Murray Lundberg said it was named after Michael J. Henry’s Red Line Transportation Company which operated during the railroad’s construction years and built by Bearton Mechanical Design in Durango, Colorado, using the frame and trucks of a White Pass and Yukon Route flatcar.
The rail car was assembled in the White Pass shops in Skagway and began full operations in July 1998.
The Yukon government paid $440,000 for the railcar in 2004, and then leased it back to the White Pass and Yukon Route for a year for $20,000.
Jim Kenyon, then-minister of Economic Development, said it would bring 3,600 tourists per year into Carcross.
Lundberg said the rail car only operated briefly as it did not have enough power to climb the grade from Bennett to Log Cabin, which as part of the Chilkoot hikers’ and Carcross services had been its primary task.
Contact Patrick Egwu at patrick.egwu@yukon-news.com