Hollywood legend Emma Sweeney Returns to Durango

The Emma Sweeney was a full size model locomotive built in 1949 at the Twentieth Century Fox studio shops in Los Angeles. It was the star of the movie “A Ticket to Tomahawk”.

Finally assembly of the model was completed in Silverton, where it was pulled by a large team of mules down Blair Street.

It was also in scenes filmed on Durango’s Reservoir Hill (today’s Fort Lewis College) and on a gravel road on Molas Pass.

No “one-hit-wonder”, the Emma Sweeney also appeared in the television series “Petticoat Junction”.

Most recently the Emma Sweeney was known as the Amador Cannonball and resided in Jackson, California.

The Durango Railroad Historical Society has returned the model to Durango and located it in Santa Rita Park.

For more information contact George Niederauer at 970-382-0875 .