C.P. Huntington: Replica at Stanley Park - Photographed May 04, 2008.

In 1964, following the havoc created by Typhoon Frieda, which packed winds up to 129 km per hour, a clearing created by fallen trees in the forest was transformed into a horseshoe-shaped circuit by Deputy Superintendent Bill Livingstone, just right for the creation of the Stanley Park Miniature Railway. The Miniature Train has become one of Vancouver's most popular attractions and carries over 200,000 passengers per year.

Winding along a mile and a quarter of 20" gauge track, the train travels over trestles and through tunnels in a picturesque journey through the forest. There are three sets of cars and four engines, one of which is a replica of Canadian Pacific Railway #374, famous for pulling Canada's first transcontinental passenger train into Vancouver in the late 1880s. The real Engine #374 is on display in a special pavilion located adjacent to the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.

The major distinction between a miniature railway and a narrow gauge railway is that miniature lines use models of full-sized prototypes. There are miniature railways that run on gauges as wide as 2 ft (610 mm), for example the Wicksteed Park railway. There are also narrow gauge railways running on extremely narrow track as small as 15 inch gauge or less, for example the Rudyard Lake Steam Railway, Perrygrove Railway and the Eaton Hall Railway: these are known as minimum gauge railways.

C.P. Huntington Train - Our miniature train is one-third size, near exact replica of the original unnamed locomotive that was built in 1863 at the Danforth-Cook Locomotive works in Patterson, New Jeresy. The Civil War was raging and locomotives were hard to come by. Having been built for someone unable to pay, it would eventually play an important part in building the first Transcontinental Railroad.

In 1864, the Central Pacific Railroad, now part of the Great Southern Pacific System, started the unbelievable task of building a railroad from the Pacific eastward over the mountains. Collis P. Huntington, the dynamic Vice-President of Central Pacific, located the little locomotive in New Jersey. It was too small for Federal use, bought it, dismantled it and shipped it to San Francisco by the way of Cape Horn.

After arriving in San Francisco , the locomotive was reassembled and painted It ran on April 9, 1864. It was christened the “C.P Huntington C.P. #3”. The Huntington was twenty nine feet long, weighed thirty nine thousand pounds, when loaded, had traction power of thirty one hundred and fifty pounds and developed two hundred thirty-five horsepower at fifty miles per hour. This locomotive was assigned to construction work where it was used to pull wooded flat cars on rails as new track was constructed.

In 1871, this locomotive was used to pull a private car of Leland Stanford, who was both President of Central Pacific Railroad and Governor of California. Because is could not compete with the heavier locomotives, in 1897 the C.P. Huntington was laid aside. In 1900 it was considered obsolete and ordered demolished. About 1904, the C.P. Huntington was repaired and repainted by a shop man named Joel Osgood Wilder, who loved the little engine.