Texas Transit Association

It doesn’t carry passengers, but it is rail: Engine no. 1.

Engine No. 1 arrives at new home
Train is on the right track
Daniel Borunda El Paso Times, July 24, 2003

An 1857-built locomotive that officials said will help boost a section of Downtown redevelopment arrived Wednesday at its new home at the Union Plaza Transit Terminal.

Engine No. 1, looking brand- new after a refurbishing, was slowly moved into the first floor of the four-story terminal and parking garage under construction at San Antonio and Durango Streets.

The 25-ton train, which had been housed at the University of Texas at El Paso since 1960, will be displayed at the new transit terminal, which includes 400 parking spaces.

“It creates another reason to come Downtown. … (The terminal) creates some momentum and more reasons to do things” in Union Plaza, said Michael Breitinger, executive director of the Central Business Association and the Downtown Management District.

The engine, which was used by the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad until the turn of the 20th century, had to be moved into place before a final section of a wall was set up.

More than 50 percent of the work is complete on the parking complex, one of the largest Downtown construction projects in recent years, officials said.

“It’s real exciting,” said Joe Dorgan, owner of the nearby Club 101.

The project, which includes retail space on the ground floor, is expected to be finished next spring, Sun Metro spokesman Paul Stresow said.

“The engine is one of the few left in the world of this class and this (time) period,” said Prince G. McKenzie, curator of the Railroad & Transportation Museum of El Paso, who was among a dozen onlookers for the engine’s arrival.

“This is typical of the first engines of the first trains that came through El Paso starting in 1881,” said McKenzie whose museum is a few blocks away at 104 W. Mills.