Help Save a Legend!
The 1356 on display in front of the historic Northern Pacific depot in Missoula, MT. Check out our restoration update for work accomplished and in progress.
Northern Pacific 1356, an icon of Missoula’s railroad history.
Northern Pacific Engine 1356 where she stands on display in Missoula, Montana, at Market Square in front of the old NP depot. The engine was placed on permanent display there in 1955, after being donated to the city by the Northern Pacific Railroad. The 1356 represents over 100 years of community and story, including being a rescue engine in the 1910 fire, but she hasn’t received any maintenance in 20 years. Friends of The 1356 have organized to cosmetically restore the engine to remain a proud symbol of Missoula’s railroad past. Photo courtesy Museum of the Rockies, RVN19992
From top left, clockwise: Missoula’s Northern Pacific roundhouse, 1883. Depot and turntable from Waterworks Hill, and Railroad Street looking north, Mitch Dahl photos. Railroad Street looking north in 1918, Robert Graham photograph, and then Missoula roundhouse, 1975, by Mitch Dahl.
Help us save Northern Pacific 1356!
We envision the 1356 in her future as a newly painted, well maintained attraction with lights, bells, and whistles, an informational kiosk, an educational opportunity for kids to peek inside the cab (and adults too), and with community events surrounding her, but we need your support.
You can help us with a membership or sponsorships. Annual memberships will keep the effort to restore the engine alive and maintain it in perpetuity. Memberships start at $25 up to $200, and they all get our 2026 calendar, A Railroad Town Then and Now. The calendar features Ron V. Nixon photos, some from the private family collection and previously unpublished, great “now” photos from Mitch Dahl, and other historic photos, as well profiles and memories of people from the railroading community. Calendars will be shipped in November. You can preorder just a calendar if you like, that helps too! Calendars and memberships are available in our online store.
Sponsorships start at $500 and will include your information in our social media and on this website, as well as the sponsor’s name on a banner on the engine’s tender. You can contact us to find out more about becoming a sponsor or go to our donation page to contribute directly.
Help us light the 1356 for Christmas!
Where’s the 1356? Out of the picture in the dark. Missoula’s Downtown Association has a tree lighting event every December at Market Square, and for many years the 1356 has sat neglected and unnoticed to the east of the lighted Christmas tree. Friends of the 1356 is planning to change that this year! We’re making plans to light the cab, Christmas lights, a wreath, more. We’re working on having a costume party, with mystery passengers getting off the train.
Above, the 2021 Holidays on Higgins tree lighting celebration with the lighted tree and behind it the Northern Pacific depot, then crowds of people attending. Off to the right, out of the picture in the dark, is our NP 1356.
What Friends of the 1356 has done:
We’ve weatherized, begun cleaning and sealing the cab, put on new number boards, headlight lens, and stack cap. Lighting the headlight and the semaphores is coming up on the agenda, and the semaphores are being painted. We’ve gotten a clapper for the bell, so soon Farmer’s Market can start opening market by ringing the bell again. We still have some needs to finish up the first phases: replacement lenses for the marker lights, new running boards, a tender backup light.
We’re pursuing an agreement for workshop space to rebuild the cab, more news on that later but it’s a great development! We’re also hoping to have repair work for the tender set up soon.
Missoula Parks and Rec employees getting ready to dig to connect 1356 to a power supply.
What the 1356 means to Missoula: Your stories
Stories of the brakemen, the firemen, the engineers and their families, and the people of Missoula for whom the railroad was part of the fabric of life. The history of passengers she carried and businesses that depended on her. These are why the 1356 matters to Missoula. If you have a story or photos to share, perhaps a childhood or family memory, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us through the form below, or email stories@missoula1356.org
Philip Dahl worked on the 1356 as a fireman, including its last trip as a helper engine for the North Coast Limited to push the passenger train over Evaro Hill in 1954. Photo by son Mitchell Dahl, on the event of his dad’s retirement. Read about Phil Dahl, and see some of his son Mitch’s photographs, here.
… and passing the stories on
Trains are magical for adults and children alike, and the 1356 still has plenty of magic, though its fires are out. The 1356, keeper of story and history, community and magic, needs to be preserved for our children.
- Mayor John Engen, May 9, 2009, Missoula 1356 Day
The 1356: A Brave Engine, is a children’s book about the history of the engine, a boy who loves her, and its role in the 1910 fire. Copies are available through our online store. Profits from books sold through the website go to Friends of the 1356.
The 1356: A history
Northern Pacific 1356 was built in 1902. First she pulled the NP’s North Coast Limited passenger service between Missoula, Montana, and Spokane, Washington. Later she was reassigned to branch line freight, mixed and passenger service, largely in the Missoula area and between Missoula and Wallace, Idaho.
The engine’s most famous story is her role in 1910 as a rescue engine, when fires raged across the northwest. In the Big Blowup, the 1356 pulled families from Idaho to safety in Missoula, driving through fires on both sides of the track. She worked through floods, through snow slides, and finally a wreck on the Bitterroot River in 1943.
Thirty-six of the 40 S-4 10-wheelers that were built were turned into scrap iron half a century later. The 1356 was saved by photographer Ron Nixon and William McLeod of Missoula when they convinced the NP to refurbish her and donate her to the city of Missoula as a static display.
Here is her history, with photographs, from the Summer 2006 Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association’s Mainstreeter.
The 1356 when she was a year old, posed in front of the coal dock in Spokane, Washington, in 1903.
Melberg photo, Museum of the Rockies RVN06916
Speak up for Missoula’s 1356!
Community response is an important part of grants, fundings and permissions. Please let us know by checking “yes” in the box below if you’d like to see this historic engine maintained. We’d also love to hear your questions, suggestions, and welcome your expertise. You can sign up for our mailing list here too. Please know that we’re working on volunteer opportunities. We’re especially in need of licensed contractors.
NP X1356E, with NP 1356, Class S-4 locomotive moving freight between Missoula and Bonner, MT, June 23, 1942.
Ron V. Nixon photo, Museum of the Rockies RVN11827
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Proceeds benefit the 1356 restoration
