Canadian Railroads > Baldwin Wednesday; The well travelled DAT 1

Delta Alaska Terminal was a barge loading facility on the Fraser River in the community of Delta, south of Vancouver.

Their locomotive, DAT 1 was a Baldwin 660 horsepower switcher originally purchased in 1946 by the Morrisey,Fernie & Michel Railway. Following a stint at the Delta Alaska Terminal, it went back to the US to the Seattle & North Coast Railway. When that line abandoned, it was acquired by the California State Railway Museum and later still it was transferred to the Feather River Railway Museum at Portola, California, where I believe it still is.

​When new, this locomotive replaced several older steam locomotives on the Morrisey,Fernie & Michel Railway. The MF&M was a short line which connected the coal mine at Coal Creek BC to the CP southern main line at Fernie BC on the western slope of Crowsnest Pass. The line was abandoned around 1960 and the equipment eventually dispersed.

The MF&M was owned by Crowsnest Industries, which in turn was owned in the majority by J.J.Hill of the Great Northern Railway. Fernie was the only community in the title which the MF&M reached, but another GN subsidiary, the Crowsnest Southern Railway briefly served all those communities, and connected to the GN main line at Rexford,Montana.

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Neat to see a shot of the old girl.

She is indeed still in Portola, having gone there direct from a stint on the Napa Valley Wine Train when that line was being rebuilt.  I don't believe she was ever part of the CSRM collection.

The FRRS has been talking to museums in BC to see about getting her back to Canada as she does not fit the collection in Portola.

Z

Here she is in Portola a couple of years ago:

 

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Curious that its six cylinder engine had four exhaust stacks while in Canada and six exhaust stacks in the photo at Portola.

KG