Engine No. 9 returns to Mill Valley for Memorial Day Parade after century-long journey
When the Marin County town of Mill Valley hosts its Memorial Day Parade on Monday, it will feature a guest of honor more than 100 years old.
A train engine that once took visitors to the top of Mount Tamalpais, one of the most popular tourist attractions of its day, has made its return and is looking like the day it rolled into town for the first time.
Saturday was homecoming day at the Mill Valley Depot plaza. Old No. 9 was back.
"So, it's 12 o'clock. It's time to ring the bell. The trick is you got to pull it and do a 'round the world' with it," said volunteer Paul Moe, as he got the clanging bell spinning. "Before it left the station, the bell would ring so that everyone knew in the surrounding area that this train is leaving. Get on board."
The powerful steam engine began running in 1924, carrying passengers up Mount Tam for dinner at the top and spectacular views all the way up.
Once there, passengers had a choice to take the train back down or ride the so-called "gravity" cars to the bottom.
They never got over 12 miles per hour, but the sheer cliffs made for a thrilling ride in the open cars.
But then a fire destroyed the tavern/hotel on top, leaving the owners $40,000 in debt. So they sold Engine No. 9 to a logging company near Eureka.
"This was the newest thing they had, so they sold this quickly to make some money to pay the bills and get back in the black for 1924," said Fred Runner, President of a group called "Friends of No 9."
When it was finally retired, the locomotive ended up on display in the small town of Scotia, where it sat for decades, rusting away.
Then, in 2018, the Friends of No. 9 bought it at auction and they've spent the last seven years raising half a million dollars, while a pair of retired metal workers in Sebastopol, Don and Jeff Millerick, brought the old engine back to life.
Now, in glistening black paint, it's been lovingly restored to the condition it was in when it was 6 months old.
"A lot of this is original. We found this gauge. This is worth 10 thousand dollars, right there," said Moe, as he pointed out the equipment in the engineer's compartment.
And No. 9's technology was state of the art at the time. A tank on top held sand that could be sprayed through tubing onto the track if the wheels should lose traction.
And its boiler was converted fairly early from wood and coal to bunker oil, so it wouldn't send embers up that could start a forest fire.
"The railroad actually had ice cream in the early days of refrigeration and that was a big deal," Runner said. "People talk about it today as being the Disneyland of its day."
Today, the engine is a memory from the past, but its future is uncertain. After its appearance at the Memorial Day parade, it will be displayed in the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento for a period of six months.
There isn't another one like it — in this kind of condition — anywhere in the world. But they don't really have a permanent place to put it where it won't start decaying again, so the search continues. But one local character known as Larry "The Hat" Lautzker knows where he wants to see it.
"I say it's going to end up here. Personally, I would like to have it on the plaza where it lived," he said. "It all goes back to the mountain for me. The Mount Tam Muir Woods Railway celebrates one of the most beautiful places in the world. And this reminds everyone."
Engine No. 9 began as transportation, became a worldwide tourist attraction and is now a cherished history lesson. It's been a long journey, 101 years in the making.
