Travels of a Small Engine
By Duane Duff
In 2012, my wife Pamela and I published a book on the history of Green Timbers Urban Forest Park in Surrey BC. Part of my research was to trace the travels of the 0-4-4T logging locomotive once used there. I prepared the information that was available and wondered since then what had been missed. In April 2022, I learned that the locomotive is now at the Inland Northwest Railroad Museum in Reardan WA.
Therefore, I continued my research and wrote the essay that follows. Some information is still unavailable.
She had numerous homes, even one twice. She worked in two distinct environments and was on display in the others. She rode on a truck for one move and was even partially dismantled for another. When her current facelift has been completed, she will be in her early glory again. Those who will admire her in her latest home will see a century of history.
The little locomotive, with wheel arrangement 0-4-4T (Forney four-coupled), was built by the Davenport Locomotive Works in Davenport IA in 1920.
Her number when built was #1768. Her size was 12 feet by 16 feet and she weighed 56.5 tons. She was shipped to Vancouver Machinery Depot (VMD), which was a dealer for Davenport Loco-motives, on March 10, 1920. Between the years 1920 and 1929, she worked for M.B. King Lumber/King-Farris Lumber in Surrey (Newton) BC as #2.
Logging for the mill was mainly in the Bear Creek watershed. To transport the logs to the mill, King-Farris operated the largest standard gauge logging railroad in Surrey. The railroad traversed a large area north of Newton and joined the BCER tracks to the southeast of Newton. Part of the old railbed in the south part of Green Timbers Forest Park is maintained today as a trail. It was here where the locomotive operated. Logging terminated in 1929, when the last of the old growth timber in the area was logged. She was then reacquired by VMD.
In 1933, she moved to Raymond AB, where she worked until 1958 as #9 for the Canadian Sugar Factory Inc. The locomotive is thought to have been used to move beets in railway cars from various beet dumps to the facto-ry. Next, she was purchased by Daryl Green, who trucked her to a proposed tourist railway park at Kootenay Lake, BC. When the park failed, the locomotive was on the move again.
In 1958, she was acquired by a private owner in Cranbrook, B.C. There was a small locomotive located at a place locally known as Petticoat Junction, situated on a flat piece of land at the east end of Lake Moyie. From here, she moved to the United States and, eventually, was placed on display at a station. Although it has not been verified that this was the same locomotive, the pattern is the same.
From Cranbrook, her next move took her back across the international border when she was acquired by a private owner and moved to Thorp WA, an unincorporated community near Ellensburg, in 1972. She was sold to Monte Holm, of Moses Lake WA, in 1980.
She sat in the House of Poverty Museum in Moses Lake, WA, until she was purchased from the collection in 2007, but not moved to Pullman until January 2008 by Dan Antoni, who had purchased the local Northern Pacific depot in 1988. She found a temporary home at the depot. Two men from the Wasatch Railroad Contractors carried out the move.
As a sidelight, the locomotive left Moses Lake just before the museum was auctioned in 2008. Following is a portion of an article written by Lynne Lynch, staff writer of the Columbia Basin Herald, on June 30, 2008:
Many of the people who attended Monte Holm's estate auction over the weekend simply didn't believe his vast museum collection came from one place.
But they did, all 1,000 item lots of them, said auctioneer Chuck Yarbro, Jr. on Saturday after the 2-day auction. "People thought there were more locations." Yarbro said of Holm’s one museum in Moses Lake.
Holm, a Moses Lake scrap metal dealer and local icon, died in 2006. His family decided to Empty the House of Poverty Museum of its contents because of the cost of running the museum.
When the Whitman County Historical Society of Pullman acquired the station in 2018, they decided to donate the locomotive to the Inland Northwest Rail Museum in Reardan, Lincoln County WA, as the Pullman group deemed her to be of no historic significance for their community or Whitman County. Thus, they looked for a new owner. The new owners arranged for her to be transported to their site in the same year.
The Wasatch Railroad Company conducted a study of the locomotive to determine her condition. They found problems in the following areas: running gear, boiler, and saddle tanks. She is a little run-down and well-used. In appearance, she shows some deterioration. However, mechanically, she is in fairly good shape, but not the best.
The Davenport locomotive is now on display at the Inland Northwest Rail Museum, having been acquired in January 2019, waiting a slot in their restoration plans. They do not intend to put her into service but rather to restore the surface for status display. The cab was removed as it was a make-shift affair that would have blown off in the move.
When the cab has been replaced and other restoration completed, she will look more like the locomotive that she once was.
One year after arriving at the museum, she has been in existence for one century and had moved ten times. What will her experiences be during her second century?
This article was originally published in the February 2023 issue of SIDETRACK.
Author's Sources of Information:
Don King, King-Farris Lumber Company, recorded interview (located in UBC Archives, 2012.)
Lorne Pearson, historian, Surrey, British Columbia (2012).
Katie Reinhardt, Special Collections Librarian, Public Library, Davenport, lowa.
Stacey N. Gilkinson, Assistant Archivist, Surrey, BC
Faye Geddes, Library Manager, Raymond Public Library and Archives, Raymond, Alberta.
Fernanda Fernandez, Programs and Archives Assistant,
Cranbrook History Centre, British Columbia.
Doug Thorne, Formerly, Cranbrook History Centre, BC Regina Tipton-Llamas, Library Reference Supervisor and local historian, Ellensburg, Washington.
Lynne Lynch, Columbia Basin Herald staff writer, Moses
Lake, Washington.
Debbie Doran-Martinez, President/CEO, Chamber of Commerce, Moses Lake, Washington.
Steve Rimple, Moses Lk Steel Supply, Moses Lake, WA.
Marie Dymkoski, Executive Director, Chamber of Commerce, Pullman, Washington.
Linda Hackbarth, Chair, Pullman Depot Heritage Center, Pullman, Washington.
Dale Swant, President, Inland Northwest Rail Museum, Reardan, Washington.
Wasatch Railroad Contractors, Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Michael Ledingham, post August 7, 2003.
Bill Hillen, post October 25, 2011.
Sean Rotinski, post January 25, 2019
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