Shay Locomotives

Bloedel Stewart & Welch No. 1

1911 – 42 ton Class ‘B” 2-truck Shay locomotive built by Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio.

History:

• Bloedel, Stewart & Welch was formed in 1911 by US lumberman Julius Bloedel and railway contractors John Stewart and Patrick Welch. Bloedel was attracted to BC by the availability of timber and pending relaxation of US import duties on Canadian lumber. The partnership proved sound, as Stewart and Welch quickly secured the company a 40 million board foot (1800 car load) contract to supply materials for construction of the Grand Trunk Railway between Edmonton to Prince Rupert. A similar contract was issued in 1912 for the first phase of construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway from Vancouver to Prince George.
  
• BS&W’s first logging operation was at Myrtle Point, near Powell River, for which the Shay was purchased new from the Lima Locomotive Works and assigned road number 1. At that time, wood was the standard fuel and 42 tons was large for a logging locie. This was also the era before air brakes were mandatory – when logging locomotives commonly had steam brakes and the detached trucks on which the logs were transported, had only hand brakes that were set by brakemen, in accordance with locomotive whistle signals from the engineer.
  
• By 1925, BS&W had purchased and was logging extensive holdings of prime timber in the Union Bay, Menzies Bay and Alberni areas on Vancouver Island. No.1 worked at the Menzies Bay, Great Central Lake and Franklin River operations. By 1937, when No.1 was transferred to the Franklin River Camp, 42 ton wood burners had been supplanted by larger oil burning engines, so No.1 was relegated to bull-cook (light) duties and saw very little service.
  
• Following the amalgamation of BS&W and H.R. MacMillan Export, creating MacMillan & Bloedel Limited, No.1 was taken to Vancouver in 1953 in preparation for sale to Philippine interests. When the deal fell-through, the locomotive was sent to the company’s Chemainus Division, where it was lettered as M&B No.1. Destined for scrapping, it was purchased by local lumberman and museum founder, Gerry Wellburn, as the first item of a large personal collection that evolved into the Cowichan Valley Forest Museum in 1964. The engine was put on display at the museum entrance in 1966 and remains there still.
  
• Toward the end of its working life, the veteran locomotive was known affectionately as “The Old One-Spot” and “The Last Of The Wood Burners,” NB: The “Spot” referred to the dot painted to the lower right of locomotive road numbers, and which loggers referred to as a “spot” and included with the number when speaking of a locomotives.
  
• The Old One-Spot’s working life spanned many evolutions in BC logging – the era of steam power, the introduction of high-lead yarding and duplex-loading (at Myrtle Point) and the use of chain saws and hard hats (at Franklin River).
  
• Julius Bloedel seems to have had a special affection for his “Old One Spot,” which may explain why it was never sold, scrapped or converted to burn oil. His final years were spent in the company of No.1’s bell, which was loaned to his family.

Hillcrest Lumber Company No. 1

28 ton class “B” Shay locomotive. It was converted to narrow gauge specifications in 1920 with 8×8 cylinders and 29” wheels.

History:

• The Hillcrest Lumber Company was founded by Carleton Stone, a British merchant mariner who came to BC to escape the hardships of life at sea. Entering the lumber trade as a sawmill labourer, he learned the business from the ground up. In 1917 he established the HLCo in the Sahtlam District, 4 miles west of Duncan on the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway’s newly constructed Cowichan Lake Sub-Division.
• By 1920, the post World War I building boom and Stone’s attention to the requirements of the British construction industry had increased business beyond the capability of his small homemade gasoline locomotive. He decided to buy a new Shay, but the only suitable one available was a narrow gauge model that had been constructed for dealer stock. Lima converted the locomotive to standard gauge in order to meet the rush order. NB: In 1920, a Class-24 (nominal weight of 24 tons) locomotive was considered to be in the correct size range for smaller operations such as Hillcrest Lumber, and narrow gauge logging railways were about to be prohibited by the Department of Railways.
• No.1 was converted from wood to fuel oil and served the company until the purchase of a larger locomotive in 1931. In 1934 it was sold to McNeil & Munn (later Export Lumber Co.), 2 miles down the track, as their No.1.
• In 1943, the locomotive was sold to the Mayo Lumber Company, which operated a used locomotive business. It then sat idle until 1947, when it was sold to the newly formed Osborn Bay Wharf Company, a consortium of mill owners (lead by Hillcrest Lumber Company), which operated a deep sea dock served by the E&N Railway’s Crofton Spur. While at Crofton, the locomotive was fired with coal.
• In 1963, the dock’s lease expired and No.1 was sent to Hillcrest Lumber’s new operation at Mesachie Lake to be converted back to narrow gauge and oil firing for donation to the soon to be opened Cowichan Valley Forest Museum.
• The locomotive is currently being rebuilt.
•  Two versions of the locomotive have been manufactured in HO Scale. The standard gauge version is known as the “Hillcrest Shay” and the narrow gauge version as the “Cowichan Shay.”

Mayo Lumber Company No. 3

1924 Shay locomotive that operated in Vancouver Island’s forest industry.

History:

• The Mayo Lumber Company was formed in 1917, by a group of Sikhs from the Punjab region of India. Management rested with Mayo Singh and Kapoor Singh (unrelated). Kapoor was the only shareholder who could speak English. Like Hillcrest Lumber, Mayo Lumber was known as being a good company to work for. Both companies had large numbers of Chinese, Japanese and East-Indian workers.
• The company operated railway logging operations and sawmills at Paldi (originally Mayo) and at Kapoor. The Mayo Sawmill was on the E&N Cowichan Sub. near the Hillcrest Lumber and McNeill and Munn sites. The Kapoor Lumber Company mill was on the CNR line at Sooke Lake, now part of the Greater Victoria Watershed. Shay No.3 worked at Kapoor between 1928 and 1940. In 1942, Lake Logging bought the company’s Meade Creek timber holdings and Paldi sawmill. No.3 was leased to Lake Logging to service the Paldi mill from 1942 until 1945, when a fire at Lake Logging’s Rounds Camp destroyed 27 million board feet of felled and bucked timber, ending the surplus of logs that had been sent to Paldi for milling. Most of the Paldi employees then transferred to Lake Logging’s large new mill at Honeymoon Bay.
• No.3 was on display at Paldi until 1967, when Rajindi Mayo donated it to the Cowichan Valley Forest Museum, in memory of Pioneer Lumberman Mayo Singh.
• In 1995, No.3 was restored to operation by museum staff and volunteers for temporary loan to the (then) Kettle Valley Railway Historical Society. The boiler was converted to burn fuel oil at that time, but the Radley-Hunter stack was left on for appearance sake.
• No.3 was the first Shay in BC to use superheated steam. It also featured an enclosed steel cab, cast trucks and a girder frame. What was not modern was its use of wood as a fuel. Mayo favoured wood because plenty of slab wood was available from his sawmills, labour was plentiful and cheap and the hauls were relatively short. On an average day, the boiler consumed approximately 8 cords (1024 cubic feet) of wood.

Shawnigan Lake Lumber Co. No. 2

1910 – 23 ton Class “B” Climax locomotive. Currently on long term loan from the Royal British Columbia Museum.

History:

• Shawnigan Lake Lumber operated a sawmill on the E&N Railway at Shawnigan Lake, between 1889 and 1943, when the company was acquired by H.R. MacMillan Export. Logging methods progressed from ground lead yarding, to a 6-foot gauge pole railway using first horses, then a homemade wooden locie and then a 15 ton Style “A” Climax (Betsy), then to a standard gauge railway, starting in 1905.
  • No.2 was purchased when increasing hauling distance and production rate could not be met by No.1. Similar circumstances resulted in the locomotive being sold to Sahtlam Lumber in 1922, when a 70-ton Climax (2nd No.2) was purchased to work with Betsy. In 1924, No.2 was sold to nearby Channel Logging, on the CNR, 5 miles south of the community of Lake Cowichan.
• In 1929, Channel Logging encroached on timber owned by Cameron Lumber, and the locomotive was held as collateral at Cameron’s camp, just off the CNR at Deerholme, 3 miles west of Duncan. When the Great Depression caused both operations to close in 1930, No.2 was abandoned in the wilderness, until Duncan resident Granger Taylor plowed a road through one-half mile of forest to rescue it in 1969. By then the locie was in a sad state – the wooden cab having rotted-away, its trucks and drive shafts missing and trees were growing through its frame. NB: The trucks reportedly were salvaged by Hillcrest Lumber, during World War II, for use on company speeders.
• Taylor restored the engine to operation at his residence (known as the “Sleepy Hollow Museum), using freight car trucks and industrial power transmission components. In 1973, his interest had switched to airplane construction, and No.2 was sold to the provincial government, which at that time was interested in the preservation of historical artifacts.
• Following further restoration at British Columbia Forest Product’s Caycuse Camp, No.2 toured the province between 1975 and 1979 as a working display on a flat car of the (then) Provincial Museum’s museum train. Since 1980, it has been on display at the (now) BC Forest Discovery Centre.
• As well as being one of only two authentic Climax locomotives preserved in Canada (both at the BC Forest Discovery Centre), No.2 features the T-shaped, square firebox type boiler typical of early Style “A” and “B” Climaxes.

Hillcrest Lumber Co. No. 9

1915 – 45-50 ton Class “B” Climax locomotive, one of very few Climax engines in the world that are in operational condition.

History:

• Purchased new by the M.D. Olds Lumber Company of Birch Michigan, No.1 was too light for their requirements.
• The locomotive was sold to the McNair Lumber Co. for use at their Queen Charlotte’s operation, and shipped to Vancouver by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Before it arrived WWI ended, and so did the demand for aircraft grade Sitka Spruce.
• The Canadian Robert Dollar Lumber Company (renamed the Smith Dollar Lumber Company) purchased No. 1 for their Deep Bay and Union Bay operations on Vancouver Island. Deep Bay ceased operation in 1922, and Union Bay in 1931.
• There is a possibility that the locomotive may have worked for the Alberta Lumber Co. who had operations in the False Creek area of Vancouver before being purchased by Abernethy & Lougheed.
• Sold to Abernethy & Lougheed Logging Co. (renumbered No. 44) for their extensive operations in the Fraser Valley (Mission, Ruskin). For a time, A&LL was one of the largest operations in the province, boasting 9 camps, 1000 loggers and 7 locomotives.
• There’s also a possibility that the locomotive worked for the Scottish Palmer Lumber Company before acquired by Hillcrest.
• No. 44 was sold to the Hillcrest Lumber Co. in 1936 (renumbered No. 2) for its operation at Wheatley, 4 miles west of Duncan, where she switched the yard and worked the logging grades of Mount Prevost and Shatlam.
• By 1942 the timber supply was exhausted, and the operation was moved to Mesachie Lake. Using E&N trackage to Lake Cowichan, and the final 3 miles to Mesachie Lake over the Victoria Lumber & Manufacturing Company’s Robertson River Railway.
• To avoid confusion with other logging engines using VL&M trackage, No.2 was renumbered No.9. When railway logging at Mesachie Lake ended in 1949, No.9 became a backup to No.10, a newer 70-ton Climax that switched the mill and interchanged freight cars with the E&N terminus at Lake Cowichan, until the mill closed in 1968
• Hillcrest Lumber’s Stone Family donated No.9 to the (then) Cowichan Valley Forest Museum in 1968, where it was on outdoor display until 1989.
• It was moved to a newly constructed locomotive shed and restored to operation by Museum staff and volunteers for RailFair 91 in Sacramento, California.
• For a number of years, No.9 was steamed-up on special event days and run up and down a very short length of standard gauge track. It remains in operational condition, but has not been certified in recent years, due to budgetary and other constraints.

Cowichan Valley Railway Locomotive No. 25 “Samson”

1910 18 ton 0-4-0 saddle tank engine built by Vulcan Iron Works in Pennsylvania.

History:

• No. 25 was purchased new by the Grant Small & Co., a construction contractor based in Leavenworth and Spokane WA.
• S.S. Magoffin Construction purchased the locomotive from the Vancouver Machinery Depot in 1920 and used it on the Great Northern Railway (now CNR) grade through the Fraser Canyon.
• Later, it was possibly used on North Vancouver’s port development.
• In 1926, it was overhauled by the Vancouver Machinery Depot, where the boiler’s lap-seam joint was replaced with a butt-strap joint allowing the allowable steam pressure to be raised to 150 psi.
• The locomotive saw little service after the overhaul and was facing the scrappers torch when purchased by Gerry Wellburn in 1955.
• No. 25 was the Glenora & Western Railway’s first locomotive.Transferred to the BC Forest Museum in 1966.
• To satisfy BC Forest Service requirements, No.25 was converted to an oil burner.
• Major boiler repairs in 1988 by Museum staff, saw a welded barrel installed. No.25 is very similar to “Old Curly,” the oldest surviving steam locomotive in BC.
• Named “Samson” after an Old Testament hero of exceptional strength.

Cowichan Valley Railway No. 24 “Susie”

1900 – 12 ton 0-4-0 tank locomotive built by Vulcan Iron Works of Pennsylvania and used for mining.

History:

•  Designed for mine service, No.24 originally had a short stack, no dome and a low cab (flush with the saddle tank). Saddle tanks increase adhesion and shorten engine length by eliminating the tender.
• In 1920, the W.H. Mussens Co., of Montreal, sold the locomotive to the Crow’s Nest Pass Coal Company.
• In 1943 the CNPC opened the Elk River Colliery where No. 4 worked untill 1958. While at Elk River Colliery a balloon-stack was installed and the wooden cab was replaced with a metal one, by a British engineer, who incorporated the porthole-type windows, used on British railways.
• In 1958, No.4 was saved from scrapping when Gerry Wellburn purchased it to be No.24 on his fledgling Glenora & Western Railway in Deerholme. In preparation for use on the GV&R, the loco was converted from coal to oil and a tender was added to carry the fuel oil tank, making it a 0-4-0-STT.
• In its present configuration, No.24 is very similar to the historic “Winnetonka,” the first locomotive of the Northern Pacific Railway, purchased in 1870 and now preserved as NPR No.1.
• No.24 has been out of service since 1989, in need of boiler repairs.
• Named “Susie,” in honour of a former conductor.

Cowichan Valley Railway Locomotive No. 23 “Sandy”

1925 Plymouth locomotive with a Climax motor.

History:

• BC Department of Railways inspection certificate shows it undergoing its first inspection at BC Cement Company’s Blubber Bay (Texada Island) operation on December 15, 1950, as locomotive No.1. This railway operation closed in 1953.
• Acquired in 1953, it became the Glenora & Western Railway’s No. 23.
• According to Gerry Wellburn, Sandy “was the work horse that built the track at the Forest Museum”. 

Cowichan Valley Railway Locomotive No. 26 “Green Hornet”

1940’s engine which has been completely modified and converted to a gas powered locomotive.

History:

• CVR’s No.26 was purchased new, as No.3 of the British Columbia Electric Railway Company, for use at Victoria and after 1940, at Jordan River. The BCER, an arm of the BC Electric Company (now BC Hydro), built a narrow gauge railway in 1909, to construct the dam and transmission lines of its Jordan River hydroelectric power plant. Until 1970, 6 miles of railway was operated to access and service the dam site.
• In November of 1970 the locomotive was purchased from the Nelson Machinery Company of North Vancouver, with funds donated by the late Timothy Eaton of Eatons Canada, as a good, reliable backup to the steam locomotives.
• Named the Green Hornet by railway staff, No.26 serves as the railway’s work engine and alternate passenger train engine.

Cowichan Valley Railway Locomotive No. 22

When in use, the 1928 locomotive had been coupled to a water tanker and kept on standby for fire fighting purposes.

History:

• It is believed that the locomotive was purchased new by Bishop Buckingham for use in Quebec.
• Sold in 1929 to the BC Cement Company as No.4, it worked at their Bamberton (Saanich Inlet) plant until 1938 and then at Blubber Bay (Texada Island).
• Purchased by Capital Iron in 1953, it was used at their Victoria Harbour salvage yard until 1957.
• Bought by Gerry Wellburn it became the Glenora & Western Railway’s No.21, and later the Cowichan Valley Railway’s No.22.

Crew Speeder – Crown Zellerbach No. 27

History:

from “Logging by Rail” by Robert Turner (1989)

• The British Columbia Railway Department worked closely with logging companies and equipment manufactures to improve safety and equipment standards.
•  By the late 1930’s, what became the typical BC Speeder design had developed.
• The Gibson Manufacturing Company of Seattle was an early builder of the style of speeder.
• The Hamilton Bridge Company (Vancouver) also developed an enclosed speeder.
• The logging companies also built their own speeders and worked to establish safety and construction standards. Bob Swanson, who was then the Master Mechanic for the Victoria Lumber & Manufacturing Co. at Chemainus, took a particular interest in the recent developments.
•  Under Bob Swanson the VL&M crews developed and built several speeders which established the standards for the industry.

• Donated by Crown Zellerbach in 1973.
• Rebuilt by the BC Forest Service at their Maintenance Depot. The BC Electric Railway (Jordan River Dam) donated the trucks, and the engine was donated by the Duncan Garage.

Whitcomb Locomotive

British Columbia Forest Products No.9

History:

• Built for USA military service in WWII, it is believed to have been intended for duty in North Africa but was not sent due to early victory in that campaign.  Most USA military locomotives sent overseas were coal fired – except for those intended for North Africa or Italy, where coal was not readily available.
• No. 9 (US 65.00342) worked at the US Navy’s Fleet and Industrial Supply Center in Oakland, CA.
• Declared surplus, the locomotive was stored at Oxnard, CA where it was purchased by British Columbia Forest Products in 1956 from Pan-American Engineering Co. of Dallas TX.
• Used at their Crofton Pulp Mill, the No. 9 (a  larger than normal mill switcher) was required due to the steep grade between the deep-sea dock and the mill.
• No.9 served the mill until increased production and heavier freight cars required more power and it was placed on standby service in 1985. In 1989 it was donated to the (then) BC Forest Museum.
• The original Buda engines were replaced with Cummins L1-600s, which were in turn replaced by Caterpillar 353s.
• No.9 is significant in that it represents the change from steam to diesel power in BC’s pulp and paper industry railways.