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.
We’re looking for photos and memories for our calendar.
Our 2026 calendar, A Railroad Town Then and Now, will feature Ron V. Nixon photos, some from the private family collection and previously unpublished, and other historic photos, but also profiles and memories of people from the community. Please email with memories you’d like us to add! We’re currently working on roundhouse stories.
Become a Friend of the 1356!
Annual memberships will help us keep the effort to restore her alive and maintain the engine in perpetuity.
Members will receive our 2026 calendar. Calendars will be shipped in November, along with other perks of membership. Find out more about membership here. Thank you for your support!
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.
Restoration update
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 well on the way to being accomplished, and the semaphores are being painted. We’ve gotten a clapper for the bell, so 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 still raising money for the whistle.
What Friends of the 1356 is doing now: We’re pursuing an agreement for wood shop space to rebuild the cab, more news on that later but it’s a great development! We’ll also have repair work for the tender set up soon.
What we need. We’re seeking memberships and sponsorships to support these efforts. Funds would also be used for maintenance through the winter and to begin the next phases of restoration in the spring, as well as organizational and administrative needs.
Sponsorships would include the sponsor’s information in our social media and on this website as well as the sponsor’s name on a banner on the tender. Memberships to Friends of the 1356 would help us maintain the engine in perpetuity, and give us the opportunity to promote Missoula’s railroad history and community through a sponsored speakers bureau and other publications and events.
We need your help! We would very much appreciate your help in supporting Missoula’s historic icon, 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. Thank you for your interest in Northern Pacific 1356! You can contact us to find out more about becoming a sponsor or go to our donation page for more about memberships.
Missoula Parks and Rec employees getting ready to dig to connect 1356 to a power supply.
Help us light the engine for the Christmas parade!
One of our goals is to see 1356 lit up for Missoula’s Holiday on Higgins downtown Christmas parade. We’re getting close, but we’re still sourcing replacement lenses for the marker lights and a tender backup light, lumber for the running boards, and the actual Christmas lights. Email us if you’d like to help get these things for Engine 1356.
Help us give the 1356 her voice back!
A YouTube video with 4-6-0 whistle sounds
Listen to a Rizzoli whistle
The 1356’s whistle would be reserved for occasions and events, and as the engine doesn’t have steam we’d probably have to use an air compressor… But wouldn’t it be great to be able to hear it?!
We’re looking at a reproduction whistle from Rizzoli Locomotive Works. This is a high end item, $2500. We’d talked about making a wooden whistle just for looks, but that would deteriorate and continue to need to be replaced. The whistle from RLW would last for many years, and on a sweet summer evening in Missoula you’d sometimes be able to hear the 1356, just like she was coming into the station over 70 years ago.
Contribute to a whistle for the 1356!
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
Show your support for the 1356 with a T-shirt or hoodie!
Proceeds benefit the 1356 restoration
