After attempts to find a location in Santa Clara County for Southern Pacific locomotive 2479 and other rail artifacts, they will be relocated to Fremont, Niles Canyon Railway officials announced this week.

For 20 years, the Pacific Locomotive Association, operators of the Niles Canyon Railway, supported the ideals of the California Trolley and Railroad Corporation.

The corporation has been working to preserve locomotive 2479, a round house, water tower, and turntable once located on Lenzen Avenue in San Jose.

Now, the boards of both organizations and Santa Clara County have agreed to move the locomotive and other artifacts to Niles Station at 37029 Mission Blvd. in Fremont. The steam locomotive will run again through Niles Canyon.

The announcement comes on the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Pacific Locomotive Association.

Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.