Historic locomotive to return to Dagupan

DAGUPAN CITY — The first railroad locomotive that made its maiden trip from Manila to Dagupan on Nov. 24, 1892, will be turned over to the city government in time for the 58th Agew na Dagupan (Dagupan Day) celebration on June 20.

The turnover ceremony will be presided over by Jaime Jacob, board chairman of the Philippine National Railways (PNR).

The PNR board approved a resolution for the request and transfer of the vintage engine "on condition that an appropriate clearance is secured from the National Historical Commission inasmuch as the said locomotive train is of historical value not only to the PNR but also to our country," said Jose Sarasola II in a letter dated May 18 to Ludovico Badoy, executive director of the National Historical Institute.

The PNR resolution was authored by director Felipe Siapno, a Dagupeño, who acted on the recommendations of Speaker Jose de Venecia and Dagupan City Mayor Benjamin Lim.

The word Dagupan is embossed on the head of the vintage engine which proves that it plied the Dagupan route, Lim said.

What makes the vintage locomotive more interesting was its project supervisor, Don Carlos Enrique Bonifacio Kipping, an English national, married Leonor Rivera, a former sweetheart of Dr. Jose Rizal, the country’s national hero, at the old St. John Cathedral in Dagupan on June 17, 1891.

Based on the Libro de Casamientos (marriage records) number 7 covering the year 1883 onwards at the Archbishop’s Palace here, the Kipping-Rivera nuptial was recorded as entry 160.

Restituto Basa, a noted Pangasinan historian, told The STAR that Kipping met Rivera through Carmen Villamil, a sister of Juan Crisostomo Villamil who was then the engineer of the locomotive train, at La Concordia College in Manila.

When Rivera’s father, a merchant who sold clothing materials, migrated to Dagupan, the love affair blossomed.

Basa said Rivera’s mother, Doña Silvestra Bauzon, opposed her daughter’s love affair with Rizal and she conspired with the postmaster so that Rizal’s letters to Leonor would instead be handed to her.

Basa, however, debunked stories that Rizal traveled on board the train to visit and see Rivera, explaining that the train started its operations only in 1892 and Rivera and Kipping were already married then.

Meanwhile, Lim, in his June 6 letter to Sarasola, said the people of Dagupan City are both glad and deeply grateful for the turnover of the vintage locomotive which will be temporarily displayed at the city plaza.

Lim has requested the PNR to lease to the city its lot at the back of the Veterans Bank on A.B. Fernandez Avenue East to serve as the permanent home of the historic locomotive.

A brief history of the PNR showed that on June 25, 1875, by virtue of a royal decree of King Alfonso XII of Spain, the Inspector of Public Works of the Philippine Islands was asked to submit a general plan for the establishment of a railroad line on the island of Luzon.

After a five-month study, Don Eduardo Lopez Navarro, head of the Public Works Office, submitted the plan called Memoria Sobre el Plano General de Ferrocarilles en la Isla de Luzon.

The plan was eventually approved so on June 1, 1887, a concession for the construction of a railway line from Manila to Dagupan was awarded to Don Edmundo Sykes of the Ferrocaril de Manila-Dagupan, the original corporate name of the Manila Railway Co. Ltd of London.

On July 31, 1887, the cornerstone was laid at its main terminal building in Tutuban, Manila. Five years later, on Nov. 24, 1892, the first 195-kilometer railway line from Manila to Dagupan began its operations.