Refurbished locomotive returns to Timmins outdoor mining museum

New life for a classic train in Timmins The Timmins Museum and Gorf Manufacturing and Contracting teamed up to refurbish a train engine once used in the Hollinger Gold Mine.

The Timmins Museum and Gorf Manufacturing and Contracting teamed up to refurbish a train engine once used in the city’s historic Hollinger Gold Mine.

While no longer useful in the mines, its purpose now is to connect the community to its past.

Last fall, the City of Timmins deemed Locomotive No 70 a safety hazard and employed Gorf to bring it back to glory. Bradley Norkum, the company’s third-generation chief executive officer, said Gorf had also worked on it in the 1980s or 1990s.

“The train came back to our facility … and we basically sandblasted and painted and did a little bit more work to the structural integrity of it because it was so rotten,” Norkum said.

“It was a cool project to be a part of and we couldn't be more happy to do it again.”

Museum curator Karen Bachmann said the train engine is an important part of Timmins’ history and it belongs in a public setting, along with a mine recorder’s vault and an ‘arrastra,’ which is a primitive mill used for grinding ore.

“I think it's interesting for us to be able to really trace our history,” Bachmann said.

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“Nobody else is going to do it. If we ignore our history, nobody else is going to come around and say, isn't this amazing? I think we have to really keep in mind that we are an important gold mining community. The Porcupine Gold Rush is bigger than what the Klondike Gold Rush was. We have a lot to be proud about in this community. We've done some really good things and I think this is just a really nice, positive way for us to reinforce who we are in northern Ontario and what Timmins and the Porcupine is in Ontario.”

Bachmann said everyone who worked on the 10-month-long project put their heart and soul into it and their community pride now shines throughout this park which overlooks Porcupine Lake.