Photo Record
Images
Metadata
Catalog Number |
2021.072.032 |
Object Name |
Print, Photographic |
Description |
Hillcrest Lumber Company Climax No. 9. It is a Class B Climax. Photograph depicts locomotive moving into an enginehouse and was possibly taken at Hillcrest Lumber Company's Mesachie Lake mill. |
Image File Name |
unk - Hillcrest Lumber No. 9 going into shed - Mesachie Lake - 2021072032 - jpg72 - 001 |
Place |
Mesachie Lake |
Provenance |
This locomotive was built in 1915 and sold to Hillcrest Lumber Company in 1936. It was originally numbered No. 44 and was renumbered No. 2 upon being owned by Hillcrest. She worked 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. 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. It remains in operational condition, but has not been certified in recent years, due to budgetary and other constraints. In 1917, Carlton Stone built a sawmill in Sahtlam, BC, five miles west of Duncan, BC on Vancouver Island. It was destined to become the largest independently owned family sawmill in British Columbia, employing some 300 employees in the sawmill / planer mill complex and another 50 in the logging division. The company operated in Sahtlam from 1917 to 1943 and when the timber was depleted, Stone moved the whole operation lock, stock and barrel by rail to Mesachie Lake, BC, 19 miles west of Duncan, BC past the town of Lake Cowichan (From: The Last Whistle - Hillcrest Lumber Company LTD by Cecil Ashley). |
Search Terms |
Hillcrest Lumber Company Climax Climax Manufacturing Company No. 9 Locomotive Mesachie Lake |
Collection |
Locomotives |
Subjects |
Locomotives Maintenance |