A group of like minded citizens are assessing whether there’s community support to restore a piece of North Bay’s railway history.

Volunteer William Ferguson says ONR steam locomotive #503 was operational until 1960.

“It hasn’t been fired since then. What we’re hoping to do in this project is to restore the locomotive and bring it back to a fireable condition.”

He says Tuesday night a community meeting was held to gauge support and 40 people were in attendance.

Ferguson adds they’ve received several e mails in support of their efforts as well.

Ferguson says there’s nothing in the community that highlights North Bay’s railway history and they want to restore a locomotive and operate it atleast on an excursion basis.

It was used by Ontario Northland and was put on static display for many years.

He says it was at Lee Park for many years and is currently behind the bus terminal.